THE  CONFLICT  BETWEEN 


Man  and  Mammon 

 OR  

GOLD  SLAVERY  THE  CURSE  OF 
THE  WORLD. 


BY  Geo.  W.  Warder, 

author  of 

"After  Which  All  Things,  or  Footprints  and  Shadows,  ' 
"Utopian  Dreams  and  Lotus  Leaves,"  Etc. 


"I  believe  the  struggle  now  going  on  in  this  country 
and  in  other  countries  for  a  single  gold  standard  will,  if 
successful  produce  wide  spread  disaster  in  the  end,  through- 
out the  world." — James  G.  Blaine. 


KANSAS  city: 

LEAGUE  PUBLISHING  CO. 
1896. 


Dedicated  to  Those  Who  Love  HuxManity, 
AND  Would  Save  Mankind  From  the  Tyranny  of  Gold, 

AND  THE  Avaricious  Grasp  of  the  Usurer  ;  Who 
Regard  Patriotism  Above  Party,  and  the  Prosperity 
OF  the  Toiling  Masses  More  Important  than 
Increasing  the  Wealth  of  Millionaires, 
AND  Who  Oppose  the  Present  Gold  Standard  as  Hurt- 
ful and  Ruinous, 
Producing  Monetary  Anarchy. 

BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


Kntered  according  to  act  of  Congress, 
in  the  year  1896,  by  Geo.  W.  Warder, 
in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at 
Washington,  D.  C. 


INDEX. 


chapte:^  1, 

The  Tyranny  of  Wealth   7 

The  World's  Energies  Expended  in  Enslavement  of  the  Race. ...  9 

Individual  Avarice  and  Corporate  Greed.  10 

CHAPTER  II. 

Free  Silver  the  Present  Financial  Issue  12 

The  Gold  Standard  not  the  Standard  of  Civilization  14 

Why  England  Demonetized  Silver  16 

Silver  the  Unit  of  Value  for  a  Century  21 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Crime  of  1873  23 

Cleveland  a  Dissapointment   .  .  26 

Not  Demonetized  Because  of  Overproduction  30 

Increase  of  Gold  Over  Silver    32 

Silver  Was  at  Par  When  Demonetized  33 

CHAPTER  V. 

Avarice  of  the  Rich  the  Only  Motive   35 

Not  Enough  of  Poth  Metals  36 

Destroying  Silver  Doubles  the  Purchasing  Power  of  Gold.  .  :  37 
CHAPTER  VI. 

All  Parties  for  Bi-Metalism    40 

Other  Nations  Follow  Our  Example  41 

No  Reason  Why  We  Should  Wait  42 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Bi-Metalism  and  Concurrant  Circulation  are  Different  44 

Silver  Still  Measures  the  Value  of  the  World's  Products   47 

Only  the  Usurer  Benefited  by  the  Gold  Standard   50 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Restoration  of  Silver  the  Only  Hope  of  Prosperity   52 

Honest  Money — Gold  the  Most  Dishonest  53 

Could  "Sound"  Money  Produce  Such  a  Curse  54 

CHAPTER  IX. 

No  Danger  of  a  Silver  Plood  57 

We  Can  Have  Two  Standards   58 

Gold  Has  No  Intrinsic  Value  59 


CHAPTER  X. 

A  Fitty  cent  Dollar  can  be  Legislated  into  a  loo-cent  Dollar  64 

A  Dishonest  Argument  67 

Why  Favor  the  Gold  Miner  and  Oppress  the  Silver  Miner   68 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Can  the  United  States  Alone  Hold  up  Silver  70 

CHAPTER  Xn. 

The  Honor  and  Credit  of  the  Government  not  Involved  72 

The  Stanley  Mathews  Resolution  74 

Abraham  Lincoln's  Position  75 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

What  the  Policy  to  Preserve  the  Parity  Means  79 

Silver  Coinage  Provided  by  the  Sherman  Bill  83 

Chas.  Foster's  Order  the  Only  Authority  to  Pay  Gold  88 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  Single  Standnrd  is  a  Defective  Financial  System  93 

Agitation  Hurtful  to  the  Gold  Standard  Because  a  Weak  System, .  100 
CHAPTER  XV. 

Why  We  Should  Retain  the  Ratio  of  16  to  i   loi 

16  to  I  the  Only  Just  and  Legal  Ratio  103 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Effort  of  Immediate  Bi-Metalism  Beneficial  106 

European  Authorities  Favor  Bi-Metalism    107 

Mr.  Cleveland's  Emissaries  no 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Andrew  Jackson's  Fight  With  the  United  States  Bank  114 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

The  Eastern  and  Western  Bankers  on  Bi-Metalism  121 

Indebtedness  of  the  Banks  123 

1  he  Money  Power  the  Most  Open  Violators  of  the  Law  125 

CHAPTER  XIX, 

The  People  West  of  the  AUeghanies  Terribly  in  Earnest  127 

The  Anarchists  of  New  York   131 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Bi-Metalism  Should  be  Restored  Without  Delay  134 

A  Patriotic  Prophecy    142 


"Whoever  controls  the  volume  of 
money  of  any  country  is  absolute  master 
of  all  industry  and  commerce.— James 
A.  Garfield. 


"If  a  government  contracted  a  debt 
with  a  certain  amount  of  money  in  cir- 
culation, and  then  contracted  the  money 
volume  before  the  debt  was  paid,  it  is 
the  most  heinous  crime  a  government 
could  commit  against  the  people."— 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


INTRODUCTION. 

In  the  early  dawn  of  the  world's  history  its 
scattered  population  followed  a  nomadic  life. 
They  dwelt  in  tents  and  drove  their  grazing  herds 
over  trackless  plains.  Their  wants  were  few  and 
simple,  their  government  patriarchal.  When  they 
encroached  upon  each  other  they  could  say  like 
Abraham  to  Lot,  Is  not  the  whole  land  before 
thee?  If  thou  wilt  take  the  left  hand  then  I  will 
go  to  the  right." 

Under  such  conditions  avarice  could  not  grow 
nor  oppression  flourish.  In  time,  however,  they 
abode  in  rude  villages  and  obeyed  the  head  men 
of  the  tribe.  They  built  huts  and  houses,  they 
claimed  proprietorship  in  land.  Gradually  their 
villages  swelled  into  cities  with  temples  and  pal- 
aces— they  studied  the  arts  of  peace  and  war,  of 
commerce  and  agriculture.  They  had  servants  and 
fine  linen,  purple  garments,  ornaments  of  gold  and 
silver,  and  jewels  of  rubies,  pearls  and  diamonds. 

Then  came  money,  the  representative  of  prop- 
erty. Then  came  the  love  of  money,  the  root 
of  all  evil."  Then  came  avarice  that  oppressed  the 
poor,  and  crushed  the  needy. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  TYRANNY  OF  WEALTH. 

Early  in  the  world's  history  came  the  tyranny 
of  wealth  and  power — for  wealth  brought  power, 
and  power  enabled  avarice  to  gorge  its  insatiate 
maw  with  helpless  victims.  Then  commenced  the 
conflict  between  Man  and  Mammon  that  has  raged 
through  every  period  of  the  world's  history.  And 
what  seems  strange  and  saddest  has  raged  most, 
and  claimed  most  victims  in  the  most  civilized  peri- 
ods of  every  nation. 

It  was  when  Egypt  was  at  the  height  of  her 
power  and  grandeur  that  she  had  most  slaves  and 
most  oppression.  Then  she  built  her  great  temples 
and  pyramids.  Then  she  held  in  bondage  the 
hosts  of  Israel  and  compelled  them  ^'to  make 
bricks  without  straw.''  When  Greece  astonished 
the  world  with  her  learning,  and  reared  her  great- 
est temples,  and  the  Parthenon  was  the  wonder 

7 


8  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

and  admiration  of  the  world,  the  few  rich  and  am- 
bitious reveled  in  wealth  and  luxury,  while  the 
common  people  dwelt  in  rude  huts,  and  were  cast 
into  prison  and  sold  into  slavery  for  debt.  The 
imperial  diadem  of  Rome^  in  the  zenith  of  her 
world-conquering  grandeur,  was  sold  by  the  Pre- 
torian  Guards  for  gold  and  silver  to  the  highest 
bidder.  And  avarice  and  oppression,  twin  monsters 
of  Mammon,  ran  riot  in  her  streets  and  claimed 
their  worshippers  in  the  Forum  and  Pantheon, 
and  that,  too,  when  the  voice  of  Cato  and  Cicero 
was  heard  in  eloquent  appeals  for  manhood  and 
liberty. 

Venice,  in  the  height  of  her  power,  robbed 
Greece  and  Asia-Minor  to  beautify  and  enrieh  her 
temples  and  palaces.  France,  in  her  conquests, 
despoiled  Italy  and  Egypt.  England,  in  her  great- 
est civilization,  has  been  the  world's  octopus.  She 
has  seized  principalities  and  empires  from  all  con- 
tinents, and  gathered  booty  from  all  lands  and  the 
islands  of  the  sea. 

Thus  has  Mammon,  the  god  of  riches,  sharp- 
ened the  wits  of  her  devotees  in  every  age.  And 
the  more  enlightened  the  times  the  stronger  the 
grasp  of  avarice,  the  sharper  the  teeth  of  greed — 
the  more  hidden  and  corrupt  the  devious  ways  to 
wealth. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  9 
THE  world's  energies   EXPENDED  IN  ENSLAVEMENT 
OF  THE  RACE. 

Sad  and  astounding  is  the  fact  that  the  ener- 
gies of  mankind  have  been  expended  in  the  enslav- 
ment  rather  than  the  Hberation  of  the  human  race. 
Every  generation  has  sat  like  a  stupid  image  of 
Buddha  on  the  breast  of  its  own  aspirations.  The 
heroes  and  patriots  who  have  struggled  to  break 
the  fetters  of  Mammon  and  oppression  have  been 
treated  as  the  common  enemies  of  human  peace 
and  happiness,  when  they  were  its  saviors  and 
benefactors  '^of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy.'' 
It  is  a  great  fallacy  that  every  age  has  conceded  to 
man  all  the  freedom  he  was  fit  to  enjoy.  No  age 
has  done  so.  Every  age  has  had  its  despotic  czar, 
and  every  reformer  threatened  with  a  Siberia. 

The  mammon  of  selfishness  and  the  greed  of 
wealth  are  the  twin  giants  of  oppression  that  have 
slain  the  hopes  and  happiness  of  men,  and  strewn 
the  earth  with  its  hecatomes  of  misery  and  ruin. 
Their  baleful  shadows  have  encircled  humanity 
with  enslaving  intolerence,  red  with  innocent  blood 
and  the  poison  of  distrust,  until  liberty  seemed  the 
empty  privilege  of  agreeing  with  a  majority  often 
purchased  by  avarice  or  awed  by  fear.  For  fear 
has  stood  like  an  armed  assassin  at  the  door  of  free 
bought  and  liberty. 


10  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

Wars  for  conquest  have  almost  ceased. 
Hatred  of  aliens  has  given  way  to  the  broader  love 
of  humanity,  and  the  nobler  creed  of  the  father- 
hood of  God,  and  the  brotherhood  of  man.  There 
is  no  longer  any  danger  of  another  Alexander  to 
conquer  the  world,  a  Cassar  to  overturn  empires,  a 
Napoleon  to  crush  thrones.  No  more  can  the  rude 
barbarian  ravage  the  cultured  fields  of  civilization. 
The  Goths,  Huns  and  Vandals  who  destroyed 
the  civilization  of  Greece  and  Rome  disturb  not 
the  security  and  tranquility  of  modern  civilization. 
Men  no  longer  fear  the  devastations  of  fire  and 
sword.  No  longer  are  men's  bodies  sold  into 
open  slavery.  But  a  more  subtle  foe  confronts 
humanity.  It  is  the  avarice  of  the  rich — the  greed 
of  wealth — the  selfishness  of  opulence — the  Tyr- 
anny of  Gold. 

Oh!  love  of  gold!  Oh!  love  of  gain! 

The  heavens  bend  down  with  a  look  of  pain, 

To  see  you  slay— to  see  your  slain. 

INDIVIDUAL  AVARICE  AND  CORPORATE  GREED. 

The  first  great  truth  of  history  that  man  ought 
to  be  free  is  now  generally  accepted.  This  free- 
dom to  be  true  emancipation  must  be  ample  and 
complete.  We  must  not  substitute  for  the  tyranny 
of  government  the  selfishness  and  tyranny  of  indi- 
vidual avarice,  or  the  organized  oppression  of  cor- 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  il 

porate  wealth.  Organizations  are  conducted  in  the 
interest  of  a  few  beneficiaries,  and  man  is  only  a 
secondary  consideration.  He  is  despised,  neg- 
lected, while  it  is  honored,  feared,  crowned  with 
flowers,  and  decked  with  gold.  This  is  wrong. 
Man  is  more  important  than  organizations,  and  the 
people  are  paramount  to  the  interests  of  corpora- 
tions, syndicates  and  trusts. 

They  should  not  be  enthralled  by  discriminat- 
ing laws.  They  should  not  be  legislated  to  pover- 
ty or  crushed  by  the  tyranny  of  gold. 

Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  most  recent  utterance 
sounds  a  warning  note  against  the  encroachments 
of  wealth  when  he  says,  Wealth  is  a  good  ser- 
vant but  a  bad  master,  and  there  is  no  master  who 
has  the  power  of  degrading  the  human  being  more 
than  the  unchecked  dominance  of  wealth." 

History  proves  that  man  is  greatest  when  his 
heart  and  brain  and  limbs  are  unbound  and  the 
individual  life,  soul  and  emotions  are  not  ex- 
tinguished by  cold  avarice,  or  pinching  penury,  or 
obdurate  forms  of  laws,  or  aggregations  of  wealth 
that  make  existence  of  the  masses  a  hopeless 
struggle  for  bare  necessities.  His  triumph  and 
glory  is  when  he  is  free  from  these,  and  has  an 
equal  chance  to  toil,  to  advance;  with  sufficient 
leisure  to  learn  to  think;  to  become  cultured — to 


12  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

be  a  man.  Then  he  fling's  out  both  hands  to  g^rasp 
the  stars  and  the  universe,  and  then  is  the  voice 
of  the  people  the  voice  of  God." 


CHAPTER  II. 

FREE  SILVER  THE  PRESENT  FINANCIAr.  ISSUE. 

But  we  must  drop  dissertation  and  come  down 
to  the  paramount  financial  issues.  The  present 
proclaims  "the  irrrepressible  conflict"  between 
Man  and  Mammon — the  revolt  of  the  masses 
a^e^ainst  gold  tyranny.  Lincoln  truly  said,  "No 
question  is  settled  until  it  is  settled  right."  Agi- 
ation  will  continue  and  the  conflict  rage  until  g^old 
slavery,  the  curse  of  the  world,  shall  cease,  and 
silver  be  restored  to  its  former  place  in  our  finan- 
cial system,  and  that  of  the  world. 

It  was  a  mistake  and  a  crime  to  degrade  or 
destroy  one-half  the  standard  money  of  the  world. 
But  it  was  not  done  by  the  consent-  of  the  peo- 
ple of  any  country.  They  did  not  have  even  the 
opportunity  to  discuss  and  pass  upon  it.  But  it 
was  accomplished  by  the  conspiracy  of  wealth,  and 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  13 

the  scheming  avarice  of  gold  owners  and  million- 
aires. 

Gold  and  silver  in  all  the  ages  had  been  uni- 
versally adopted  by  mankind  as  the  twin  money 
metals  of  the  world.  They  had  been  used  as  such 
from  the  earliest  dawn  of  history,  and  "  from  the 
time  whereof  the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to 
the  contrary. " 

It  would  seem  that  silver  and  not  gold  was 
first  generally  used  as  money.  The  first  record  in 
history  of  the  use  of  money  was  when  Abraham 
bought  from  the  sons  of  Heth  the  Cave  of  Mac- 
pelah  for  "400  sheckels  of  silver,''  current  money 
with  the  merchant. 

Thus  silver  and  gold  had  walked  side  by  side 
through  all  the  past,  since  the  use  of  money  was 
known.  They  had  smiled  equally  upon  commerce, 
equally  upon  the  debtor,  and  creditor,  and  consti- 
tuted the  standard  and  redemption  money  of  the 
world.  And  the  only  money  recognized  by  our 
constitution. 

But  in  recent  times  the  avarice  of  the  few 
overcame  the  good  of  the  many.  This  was  with- 
in the  last  twenty-three  years.  Gold  was  the 
money  of  the  rich  and  they  resolved  there  should 
be  no  other  real  money.  They  would  strike  down 
silver,  so  that  they  might  corner  gold  and  compel 


14  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

all  nations  to  struggle  for  it.  Thus  they  could  hold 
it  in  their  hands  as  a  lemon  to  squeeze  all  the  juice 
of  prosperity  out  of  every  nation  as  fast  as  it  accu- 
mulated. 

In  accordance  with  this  purpose,  by  legislation 
they  maimed  silver  so  that  it  could  not  walk  on  its 
own  legs,  and  appointed  their  now  disreputable 
partner,  gold,  to  carry  it  around  thus  disabled. 

THE  GOLD  STANDARD  NOT  THE  STANDARD  OF 
CIVILIZATION. 

Was  it  in  the  interest  of  humanity  ?  In  the 
interest  of  commerce  or  civilization?  In  the  inter- 
est of  freedom,  or  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of 
the  great  masses? 

Never!  Impossible!  It  was  the  assassin  of 
prosperity — it  was  the  dagger  of  avarice.  It  was 
the  mailed  hand  of  tyranny — it  was  the  sceptered 
blow  of  kings,  princes  and  millionaires  in  the 
face  of  freedom,  and  on  the  brow  of  the  people. 

A  few  millionaire  bankers  and  financiers  by 
undue  influence  and  dubious  ways  have  fastened  it 
upon  every  country  that  is  now  cursed  with  its 
baneful  influence.  It  has  brought  degradation  not 
alone  to  silver,  but  to  the  people,  and  to  all  the 
products  of  their  labor.  The  people  of  no  civil- 
ized country   had  the  opportunity  to  discuss  and 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  15 

approve  it,  before  it  was  fastened  upon  them  by 
the  machinations  of  the  gold  power.  It  was  done 
secretly  or  by  the  hurried  dictation  of  rich  finan- 
ciers without  consulting  the  people  or  giving  their 
legislative  representatives  a  chance  to  consult  them. 
The  people  of  no  civilized  nation  have  ever  ap- 
proved the  gold  standard.  On  the  contrary  where- 
ever  it  exists  to-day  they  are  dissatisfied  with  it, 
and  striving  to  overthrow  it. 

The  gold  standard  is  not  the  standard  of  civ- 
ilization or  commerce,  but  the  standard  of  the  rich 
and  avaricious  few — who  have  undertaken  in  the 
last  twenty-three  years  to  prey  upon  both  civiliza 
tion  and  commerce. 

Civilization  was  at  its  high  tide  under  free 
silver.  Commerce  had  made  its  most  colo  ssa 
strides  and  covered  the  world  with  its  ships  and 
railways  under  free  silver.  Nearly  every  great 
discovery  and  great  invention  was  accomplished 
before  the  gold  standard  was  adopted. 

England  had  fought  all  Europe,  and  conquered 
Napoleon,  and  wrapt  her  empire  around  the  world 
before  she  demonetized  silver.  She  was  greater  . 
and  had  more  commerce  and  wealth  on  free  silver 
in  proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  world  than  she  has 
today  on  the  gold  standard.  She  stopped  the  free 
coinage  of  silver  for  the  selfish  benefit  of  her  mil- 


i6  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

lionaire  bankers  and  merchant  money  ioaners, 
and  not  for  the  good  of  the  masses  of  her  peo- 
ple. And  no  other  nation  in  the  world  has  ever 
had  the  same  selfish  reason.  The  United  States 
was  the  next  to  demonetize  silver.  She  did  it  in 
1873,  but  it  only  took  effect  when  she  resumed 
specie  payment  on  January  i,  1879.  Sixteen  and 
one-half  years  ago.  We  had  then  attained  the 
highest  summit  of  our  civilization  and  power  on 
free  silver.  We  had  fought  three  foreign  wars, 
and  successfully  ended  the  greatest  internecine 
conflict  in  the  world's  history.  We  were  then  the 
most  enlightened  and  enterprising  people  on  earth. 
We  have  rather  retrograded  than  advanced  from 
that  day  to  this. 

France  had  conquered  Europe  and  attained  her 
zenith  of  wealth  and  power  before  1876  when  she 
demonetized  silver.  So  with  Germany  and  all  the 
other  gold  nations — they  reached  their  summit  of 
wealth  and  power  under  free  silver.  And  since 
have  had  more  dissatisfaction,  stagnation  and  bank- 
ruptcy, than  ever  before  known  in  modern  history. 

WHY  ENGLAND  DEMONETIZED  SILVER. 

England  demonetized  silver  in  18 16  because 
she  was  then,  as  now,  the  great  creditor  nation  of 


The  first  demonetizer  of  silver,  Nathan  Meyer  Rothchild, 
spreading  a  falsehood  to  create  a  panic. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


19 


the  world.  At  the  time  shehad  neither  silver  or 
gold,  and  had  been  compelled  to  carry  on  long 
wars  on  paper  money.  But  her  sagacious  finan- 
ciers and  enterprising  merchants  and  money  loaners 
found  gold  was  the  dearest  and  scarcest  money  and 
hard  for  their  debtors  to  get,  and  they  were  the 
great  creditors  of  the  world,  so  they  adopted  the 
gold  standard.  Not  in  the  interest  of  the  many, 
not  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  but  to  increase  the 
gains  of  her  Rothchild  bankers,  her  titled  million- 
aires and  the  entailed  fortunes  of  her  nobles  and 
princes.  Nathan  Meyer  Rothchild  was  then  in  the 
prime  of  his  great  fortune  and  career.  He  was 
present  at  the  battlefield  of  Waterloo^  and  it  is  a 
matter  of  history  that  as  soon  as  he  found  that  Na- 
poleon was  defeated,  he  hired  fast  horses  and  rode 
with  all  speed  to  the  channel  where  he  hastily 
crossed  over  into  England  and  spread  the  report 
far  and  wide  that  Napoleon  was  victorious  and  the 
allied  armies  defeated.  Reaching  London  he 
threw  it  into  excitment  and  panic  by  his  false  re- 
port and  then  sent  out  his  secret  agents  and  brok- 
ers to  buy  from  the  panic  stricken  people  their 
hard  earned  savings  in  British  bonds  or  consols, 
and  made,  it  is  said,  two  millions  dollars  by  his 
damnable  falsehood.  This  same  avaricious  Roth- 
child within  a  few  years  after  he  had  thus  landed  in 


20  MAN  AND  MAMMON, 

England  with  this  brazen  lie  upon  his  hps,  with 
others  of  his  kind,  forced  the  demonetization  of  sil- 
ver in  England. 

This  man — this  peddler  of  falsehoods  was  the 
first  demonetizer  of  silver.  And  his  family  have 
followed  the  same  brazen  example  of  selfishness. 

This  man  and  a  score  of  his  like  have  controlled 
and  dictated  the  financial  policy  of  Great  Britain 
from  that  day  to  this. 

England  has  a  reason  for  the  gold  standard 
that  no  other  nation  can  claim.  It  is  a  supremely 
selfish  reason,  and  is,  therefore,  thoroughly  Eng- 
lish. This  reason  has  been  crystalized  by  Mr. 
Gladstone  into  the  following  language :  "  The  rest 
of  the  world  owes  England  ten  billion  dollars,  and 
we  want  only  one  kind  of  money  and  that  the 
best."  As  this  is  three  times  all  the  gold  in  the 
world  it  means  English  commercial  domination  and 
financial  supremacy.  It  means  the  selfishness  of 
one  nation  absorbing  the  wealth  of  all  others,  and  a 
non-producing,  money-lending  nation  impoverish- 
ing the  wealth  producing  nations  of  the  world. 
This  reason  translated — is  Shylock  demanding  the 
pound  of  flesh  nearest  the  heart — avarice  snatching 
bread  from  the  mouth  of  nations  to  gorge  its 
pampered  rich,  and  maintain  financial  tyranny. 

The  result  of  the  gold  standard  in  England  is 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


21 


that  sixty  thousand  persons  out  of  thirty-five  mil- 
lions own  every  acre  of  the  British  isles.  The  34,- 
940,000  are  tenant  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water."  A  sample  of  what  America  will  soon 
be  under  the  same  system. 

Now  can  any  American,  can  any  honest  man 
approve  the  reason  or  purpose  of  England  in  de- 
monetizing silver.  It  is  plain  it  was  not  done  by 
her  people  in  the  interest  of  her  people,  but  by  the 
millionaire  money  loaners  in  their  own  selfish  inter- 
ests. 

SILVER  THE  UNIT  OF  VALUE  FOR  A  CENTURY. 

Our  forefathers  wisely  selected  the  silver  dol- 
lar as  their  unit  of  value.  This  is  now  admitted 
by  all.  Not  only  did  they  put  it  in  the  law,  but 
they  had  moulded  on  the  circular  rim  of  the  silver 
dollar  in  their  earliest  coinage  ^ '  one  dollar  or 
unit." 

It  was  the  people's  money,  the  practicable 
useful  metal  money  of  the  world.  Washington, 
Jefferson  and  Jackson  and  all  the  patriots  approved 
the  free  use  of  silver  as  standard  money,  and  re- 
ceived their  salaries  therein.  What  was  good 
enough  for  them  ought  to  be  good  enough  for 
Wall  street,  the  Morgans  and  Rotchchilds.  There 
has  been  no  new  metal  money  discovered  since  their 
day — and  no  improvement  upon  the  metal  money 


22 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


that  then  existed.  The  number  of  grains  of  pure 
silver  in  a  dollar  has  never  changed  from  the  days 
of  Washington  to  the  present  day.  Not  so  with 
gold,  it  has  changed.  The  silver  unit  has  remained 
the  same.  The  act  of  congress  of  April  2,  1792, 
required  371%  grains  pure  silver,  the  same  as  now. 
The  act  of  June  23,  1834,  which  changed  the  ratio 
between  gold  and  silver  from  15  to  i  to  15.988  to 
I,  commonly  called  16  to  i,  changed  the  gold  dol- 
lars from  27  grains  to  the  present  25.8  grains,  but 
while  it  slightly  changed  the  weight  of  standard 
silver  from  416  to  412^  grains,  the  amount  of  pure 
silver  was  left  unchanged  at  371  ^  grains. 

Thus  the  silver  dollar  remained  the  unit  of 
value  until  it  was  demonetized  by  the  act  of  Feb- 
ruary 12,  1873,  by  dropping  the  silver  dollar  from 
the  list  of  coins  authorized  to  be  coined  at  the 
mints. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


23 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  CRIME  OF  1 873. 

This  act,  known  as  the  crime  of  1873^  was 
passed  surreptitously  as  to,  and  was  unknown  to  be 
the  demonetization  of  silver  at  the  time  it  passed. 
Certain  provisions  of  the  bill,  which  made  the  mint 
a  bureau  of  the  Treasury  Department  and  created 
the  office  of  director  of  the  mint,  were  discussed  at 
the  time  of  its  passage,  and  at  various  times  pre- 
viously. But  the  destruction  of  the  silver  dollar,  the 
unit  of  value,  was  not  discussed  or  mentioned  by 
any  one  in  any  debate  on  said  bill,  or  announced 
by  any  newspaper  or  correspondent. 

All  members  of  Congress  who  have  expressed 
themselves^  and  they  are  many,  have  claimed  they 
knew  not  that  the  silver  dollar  was  stricken  out  at 
the  time  they  voted  for  the  bill.  President  Grant 
repeatedly  stated  he  did  not  know  it  or  he  would 
not  have  signed  the  bill.  Only  John  Sherman, 
chairman  of  the  committees  of  conference,  claims 
any  knowledge  of  this  fact.  And  it  has  been  fre- 
quently stated  by  those  best  informed,  that  this 
criminal  fraud  and  outrage  on  an  unsuspecting  peo 


24 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


pie  lay  between  John  Sherman  and  the  engrossing- 
clerk  who  were  responsible  for  the  expunging  of  the 
clause  providing  for  the  coinage  of  the  silver  dol- 
lar from  said  bill.  This  is  said  to  have  happened 
too  when  a  distinguished  representative  of  the 
English  gold  interest  was  present  in  Washington 
to  wield  a  sordid  influence  over  its  financial  legis- 
lation. The  dispute  between  the  silver  and  gold 
men  is  not  whether  this  bill  was  called  up  and 
discussed  in  congress.  That  is  admitted  by  all 
parties,  but  the  friends  of  silver  claim  that  while 
many  of  its  provisions  were  discussed,  that  sec- 
tion which  dropped  the  silver  dollar  was  not  dis- 
cussed or  known  at  the  time  of  its  passage  as  hav- 
ing been  left  out.  And  this  discovery  afterwards 
created  profound  surprise  and  indignation  among 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Carlisle  and 
other  gold  orators  tell  with  great  gusto  how  many* 
times  the  bill  was  called  up  and  discussed,  but  that 
is  misleading  and  deceptive.  They  have  utterly 
failed  to  show  that  any  one  discussed  the  clause 
that  dropped  the  silver  dollar  from  the  list  of  coins 
authorized  to  be  minted. 

But  be  this  as  it  may,  the  people  of  the  United 
States  were  betrayed,  tricked  and  deceived  in  the 
house  of  its  representatives.  Without  warning 
they  were  sold  like  Joseph  by  his  brethren  into 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  25 

slavery  to  the  ''Midianitish  merchants" — to  the 
alien  worshipers  of  gold.  Then  came  the  panic 
of  1873  with  its  ruin  and  bankruptcy. 

This  destruction  of  the  silver  dollar  as  soon  as 
discovered  caused  a  storm  of  indignation  all  over 
the  United  States  that  almost  swept  the  Republi- 
can party  from  power.  It  elected  Samuel  J.  Til- 
den  in  1876,  and  carried  through  the  Bland- Allison 
bill  of  F'ebruary  28,  1878,  over  the  veto  of  Presi- 
dent Hayes.  This  act  restored  the  silver  dollar  of 
412^  grains  standard,  and  371  ^4  grains  pure  silver 
to  the  list  of  coins,  made  it  a  full  legal  tender  and 
authorized  the  purchase  of  from  two  to  four  million 
dollars  worth  of  silver  bullion  monthly  for  coinage 
into  silver  dollars.  This  gave  protection  to  silver. 
Then  confidence  and  prosperity  was  again  restored, 
and  hopeful  business  activity  took  the  place  of  the 
panic  of  1873. 

Times  improved  and  the  silver  sentiment  grew, 
and  in  1890  a  free  silver  bill  was  about  to  pass  in 
congress,  when  John  Sherman,  the  Judas  of  Amer- 
ican finances,  forced  through  a  compromise  bill^ 
known  as  the  Sherman  bill,  passed  July  14,  1890. 

This  bill  directed  that  silver  bullion  to  the 
amount  of  4,500,000  ounces  should  be  purchased 
monthly,  and  Treasury  notes  be  issued  therefor, 


26  MAN  AND  MAMMON, 

and  that  the  coinage  of  silver  dollars  should  cease 
after  July  i,  1891. 

Mr.  Bland,  the  veteran  incorruptible  friend  of 
silver  and  others  opposed  this  bill  because  it  took 
away  the  money  quality  of  silver,  and  made  it  sim- 
ply a  commodity,  and  piled  it  up  in  the  treasury 
as  a  menace  to  the  bullion  value  of  silver  the  world 
over.  And  so  it  proved,  for  the  bullion  value  of 
silver  decreased  the  world  over  from  that  time. 

CLEVELAND  A  DISAPPOINTMENT. 

Alter  the  election  of  Mr.  Cleveland  in  1892, 
and  a  Democratic  congress,  it  was  the  wish  and 
expectation  of  the  great  masses  of  Democracy  that 
silver  should  be  restored^  and  the  aristocratic  gold 
power  be  relegated  to  the  rear.  For  twenty  years 
the  Democratic  party  had  fought  the  Republicans 
because  they  had  demonetized  silver.  Every 
Democratic  speaker  from  Main  to  California,  on 
every  stump  where  he  championed  his  party's 
cause,  arraigned  the  Republican  party  for  the  crime 
of  1873 — for  its  attempts  to  destroy  the  people's 
money. 

But  what  was  the  dismay  and  chagrin  of  the 
Democracy  to  find  their  chosen  leader  desert  to 
the  gold  power,  and  endeavor  to  betray  his  owa 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


29 


party^  and  turn  it  over,  uound  hand  and  foot,  to  the 
John  Sherman  gold-bug  wing  of  the  Republican 
party. 

It  is  true  that  in  his  letter  of  acceptance  he 
construed  the  bi-metallic  plank  in  his  party's 
platform,  most  favorable  to  gold,  but  none  could 
infer  from  that,  that  he  would  deliver  his 
country  into  the  hands  of  Wall  street,  and  place 
its  prosperity  at  the  caprice  of  foreign  gold  syndi- 
cates. But  such,  alas!  seemed  the  object  and  re- 
sult of  all  his  purposes. 

Soon  after  his  inauguration,  encouraged  by  his 
secretary  of  the  treasury,  the  nine  national  bank 
presidents  of  New  York  began  to  manufacture 
the  bankers'  panic  to  force  the  repeal  of  the  Sher- 
man act.  And  for  this  purpose,  also,  Mr.  Cleveland 
announced  he  would  give  the  country  ^*an  object 
lesson,"  and  soon  after  called  Congress  to  meet 
on  the  7th  day  of  August  in  a  message  calculated 
to  produce  a  panic  or  a  revolution. 

Finally  after  several  months  of  discussion  and 
delay,  in  which  the  metropolitan  press  heaped 
mountains  of  indignant  scorn  upon  a  patriotic  Sen- 
ate for  refusing  to  concur  in  a  repeal  without  some 
protecting  legislation  for  silver — the  Sherman  act 
was  repealed.  The  silver  men  were  in  favor  of  its 
repeal,  but  demanded  some  legislation  for  silver. 


30  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

This  was  promised,  but  the  promise  has  never  been 
fulfilled.  The  president  and  gold  standard  men 
claimed  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  bill  would  bring 
prosperity  and  confidence.  But  all  their  promises 
proved  delusions,  and  we  have  had  panic  and  semi- 
panic  ever  since,  and  must  continue  to  have  as 
long  as  the  struggle  for  gold  continues  and  the 
government  undertakes  to  supply  the  gold  specu- 
lators. This  suicidal  policy  is  remarkable  when 
the  government  contracts,  moneys  and  bonds  are 
payable  in  coin,  which  includes  silver,  of  which 
the  government  has  $496,562^  41 3  in  its  treasury. 
With  this  large  amount  of  silver  on  hand,  bonds 
have  been  issued  to  buy  gold — issue  after  issue — 
increasing  and  perpetuating  the  national  debt. 
And  thus  gold  slavery  continues  the  supreme  folly 
and  crime  of  the  age. 

NOT  DEMONETIZED  BECAUSE  OF  OVER-PRODUCTION. 

The  believers  in  the  gold  standard  say  silver 
was  demonetized  because  of  over-production.  But 
this  is  not  true.  There  never  was  over-production 
of  either  of  the  precious  metals  and  never  likely  to 
be.  The  demand  is  unlimited  and  the  supply  nec- 
essarily limited.  There  is  not  enough  of  cither  or 
both  for  the  needs  of  the  world.    Silver  was  not 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


demonetized  because  of  over-production,  for  gold 
was  increasing  more  rapidly  than  silver.  Gold  has 
increased  one  billion  dollars  faster  than  silver  in  the 
last  twenty-eight  years. 

Here  is  v/hat  the  great  German  authority, 
Otto  Arendt,  says:  "What  silver  wanted  was  not 
the  demand,  for  that  is  unlimited.  Silver  has 
never  yet  lacked  purchasers.  The  abolition  of  the 
double  standard  has  brought  monetary  anarchy. 

*  'The  Americans  ignored  the  great  fundamental 
laws  of  circulation  in  trying  to  save  silver  by  the  ex- 
periments of  the  Bland  and  Sherman  laws.  What 
has  been  lacking  is  the  fixed  place  of  exchange  be- 
tween silver  and  gold,  which  can  only  be  created 
by  unlimited  demand  for  both  precious  metals  at  a 
fixed  ratio  of  value. 

Hence  limited  coinage  or  limited  purchase, 
such  as  was  made  in  the  United  States  from  1878 
to  1894  are  altogether  inadequate.  They  wrought 
harm  to  the  bi-metallic  cause,  because  their  failure 
was  exploited  by  the  gold  party,  and  because  they 
stimulated  silver  production. 

^^Had  the  United  States  declined  every  com- 
promise and  solely  aimed  at  bi-metalism,  the  silver 
depreciation  and  the  scarcity  of  gold^  would  have 
caused  a  transition  to  bi-metalism  long  ago. 

This  is  sound  and  judicious  logic,  and  shows 


32  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

the  true  way  to  bi-metalism  is  the  legal  restoration 
of  silver  coinage  at  the  mint.  This  is  the  same  au- 
thority that  Mr.  Whitney  in  his  anti-convention 
appeal  quotes  so  approvingly. 

INCREASE  OF  GOLD  OVER  SILVER. 

Gold  and  silver  appear  from  the  earliest  rec- 
ords to  have  been  co-extensive  with  the  life  of 
man,  and  silver  especially,  has  had  a  beneficial  ef- 
fect upon  the  prosperity  of  every  great  nation. 
Egypt  and  Greece  felt  its  influence,  and  Rome  had 
its  greatest  prosperity  after  the  discovery  of  the 
silver  mines  in  Spain.  Spain  had  her  greatest 
prosperity  from  the  silver  mines  of  America.  From 
the  mines  of  Croesus  to  the  Mackey-Fair  Com- 
stock  mines  of  recent  date,  the  increase  of  silver 
has  marked  the  high  tide  of  commercial  prosperity 
in  every  nation. 

Gold^  until  recent  times,  was  too  limited  in 
use  and  quantity  as  money  to  equal  the  white  metal 
in  its  beneficence  to  mankind,  and  in  ancient  times 
was  chiefly  used  for  ornaments,  and  is  still  used 
for  ornaments  in  two  continents — Asia  and  Africa. 

According  to  Dr.  Saetbeer,  of  Gottingen,  an 
eminent  authority,  the  world's  production  of  gold  up 
to  1850  was  150,000,000 ounces.    Since  1851  itis 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  33 

265,000,000  ounces,  or  an  increase  of  about  70 
per  cent,  greater  than  the  previous  three  hundred 
and  fifty-eight  years,  while  silver  lacked  about 
thirty  per  cent,  of  catching  up  with  the  previous 
production  during  said  years.  Again  the  annual 
production  increased  rapidly  since  1850,  and  has 
doubled  since  1890.  The  gold  product  in  1890 
was  5,  749,000  ounces,  and  in  1895  it  was  9,500,- 
000  ounces,  while  silver  production  in  1890  was 
137,171,000  ounc(is,  and  in  1895  165,000,000 
ounces. 

Thus  while  gold  doubled  in  five  years,  silver 
only  increased  about  twenty  per  cent,  and  this  was 
the  average  increase  for  the  decade  preceding 
1873.  taking  the  figures  of  the  two  metals 

from  1867  to  1896,  a  period  of  twenty  eight  years, 
gold  shows  an  increase  of  about  one  billion  dollars 
over  silver. 

If  ofold  has  increased  one  billion  dollars  faster 
than  silver  in  the  last  twenty-eight  years,  or  forty- 
five  years  as  some  contend,  then  it  is  apparent  that 
over-production  of  silver  was  not  the  cause  of  its 
demonetization,  for  if  that  had  been  the  reason, 
gold  and  not  silver  would  have  been  demonetized. 

SILVER  WAS  AT  PAR  WHEN  DEMONETIZED. 


Silver  was  at  par  with  gold  in  1873,  being 


34  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

worth  $  1 .298  when  demonetized.  For  many  de- 
cades previously  it  had  maintained  an  average  pre- 
mium of  two  per  cent  over  gold  at  the  ratio  of  16 
to  I.  During  1873,  when  demonetized,  and  in 
1874,  the  silver  dollar  commanded  a  premium  in 
London  of  one  and  a  half  pence,  about  three  cents 
in  our  money.  Since  349  B.  C,  the  earliest  rec- 
ord, silver  had  been  at  par  with  gold  at  16  to  i,  or 
less  ratio,  making  an  unbroken  record  of  over  2,- 
200  years. 

If  silver  was  not  increasing  as  rapidly  as  gold, 
and  was  not  depreciating  in  value,  and  we  were  not 
on  a  specie  basis,  and  were  not  using  either  silver 
or  gold,  what  was  the  motive  for  destroying  silver 
by  legislation? 

The  author  of  Bullion  versus  Coin,  one  of  the 
notable  hard  heads,  says:  "  It  was  an  extraordi- 
nary crime  for  Congress  to  declare  with  malice 
aforethought  that  we  should  not  coin  what  we  did  not 
have,''  referring  to  the  fact  that  we  had  no  silver 
or  gold  at  that  time. 

This  does  not  excuse  or  paliate  the  crime,  for 
Congress  was  then  preparing  for  resumption  of 
specie  payment  when  the  crime  would  become  op- 
erative. Such  reasoning  is  falacious  and  immoral 
and  would  justify  robbery,  provided  the  conse- 
quences were  not  felt  immediately  by  the  victim. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


35 


CHAPTER  V. 

AVARICE  OF  THE  RICH  THE  ONLY  MOTIVE. 

There  was  no  motive  for  demonetizing  silver 
but  the  avarice  of  the  rich — the  scheming  ol 
milHonaires  to  corner  the  money  of  the  world  for 
their  own  selfish  benefit.  Gold  is  the  money  ot 
the  rich  only.  Less  than  one  hundred  millionaires 
in  Europe  and  America,  own  or  control  two-thirds 
of  all  the  gold  of  the  world.  The  Rothchilds  alone 
claimed  1 1,600,000,000,  which  is  almost  one-half  of 
the  world's  supply. 

In  whose  interest,  then,  is  the  gold  standard? 
^  *A  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,"  must  know 
that  the  gold  standard  is  for  the  benefit  of  the  few 
gold  owning  millionaires.  They  must  also  know 
that  it  is  against  the  interests  of  the  people,  and  the 
prosperity  of  the  masses.  That  it  tends  to  pro- 
duce scarcity  of  money,  depression  in  business, 
low  prices  for  property,  and  continuously  threatens 
panic  and  bankruptcy.  This  must  be  so  in  the  very 
nature  of  things.  The  scarcity  of  gold  and  the  con- 
tinous  struggle  for  it,  causes  it  to  rise  in  value  and 
purchasing  power^  and  all  other  money  and  prop- 


^6  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

erty  to  fall  in  proportion  as  it  rises.  Thus  by  legis- 
lating gold  as  the  only  standard  or  redemption 
money  you  legislate  the  value  out  of  the  property 
and  products  of  the  world.  When  this  is  done 
there  is  nothing  left  on  which  confidence  can  rest, 
and  the  result  is  depression  and  financial  ruin. 

k 

NOT  ENOUGH  OF  BOTH  METALS. 

There  was  not  enough  of  both  metals  for  the 
money  of  the  world,  and  to  strike  down  one-half 
was  to  destroy  one-half  the  property  values, 
double  the  debts  of  the  debtor,  create  a  fictitious 
demand  for  gold  and  increase  the  wealth  of  the 
money  loaner  and  bond  holder.  Let  us  see  if  this 
is  correct.  If  money  is  the  representative  of  prop- 
erty, then  the  total  property  of  the  world  is  repre- 
sented by  the  total  standard  money  of  the  world. 
To  destroy  or  degrade  one-half  of  the  standard 
money  of  the  world  is  to  destroy  or  degrade  half 
the  property  values  of  the  world. 

Let  us  illustrate  with  other  commodities.  If 
there  was  only  sufficient  wheat  to  supply  the  world 
until  the  next  crop,  and  one-half  of  it  was  destroyed, 
would  not  that  double  the  value  of  the  wheat  not 
j  destroyed?  In  so  doing  would  it  not  double  its  ex- 
change value  or  purchasing  power  of  all  other 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  37 

commodities?  If,  previous  to  the  destruction,  one 
bushel  of  wheat  bought  two  bushels  of  corn,  after 
the  destruction  one  bushel  of  wheat  would  buy  four 
or  more  bushels  of  corn.  Therefore,  by  destroying 
one-half  of  the  wheat  supply  }Ou  destroy  one-half 
of  the  value  of  all  other  commodities,  measured  in 
wheat. 

Those  who  need  wheat  are  injured  by  the 
destruction,  and  those  who  have  wheat  to  sell  are 
benefited.  So  with  the  money  loaners,  they  have 
money  to  sell  and  they  are  benefited  by  the  de- 
struction of  silver,  making  money  scarcer  and 
dearer  by  one-half.  They  are  the  men  who  are 
glad  of  it,  while  the  toiling  producers  must  borrow 
dear  money  and  sell  cheap  products. 

DESTROYING  SILVER  DOUBLES  THE  PURCHASING  POWER 

OF  GOLD. 

And  so  with  the  world's  supply  of  standard 
money  by  destroying  one-half  thereof,  you  double 
its  purchasing  power  and  destroy  one-half  of  the 
value  of  all  property  and  products  as  measured  in 
that  money.  By  so  doing  is  it  not  plain  that  you 
double  the  debts  of  all  debtors,  because  it  takes 
twice  as  much  of  the  debtor's  property  to  pay  the 
debt  as  it  did  previous  to  the  destruction  of  half 
the  world's  standard  money.     In  other  words  he 


38  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

pays  a  200-cent  dollar  in  purchasing  power  when  he 
received  only  a  loo-cent  dollar. 

Take  the  farmer  -for  example  before  the  de- 
struction of  silver  as  standard  money,  he  received 
li.oo  and  $1.25  per  bushel  for  his  wheat.  If  he 
owed  $1,000  and  had  1,000  bushels  of  wheat  he 
could  sell  it  and  pay  the  $1,000  he  owed.  But  now 
he  can  only  sell  it  for  50  cents — this  pays  only  $500 
and  leaves  him  $500  in  debt  which,  with  taxes 
and  interest,  and  proportionate  low  prices  of  pro- 
ducts takes  his  farm  and  leaves  him  and  his  family 
homeless  tramps.  Take  the  government  for  ex- 
ample, at  the  close  of  the  war  it  owed  about  two 
and  one-half  billion  dollars,  it  has  paid  over  four 
billion  dollars  principal  and  interest,  and  reduced 
the  debt  to  about  one  billion.  It  now  takes  more 
wheat,  corn,  oats,  cotton  and  other  products  and 
property  to  pay  the  one  billion  we  now  owe  than  it 
did  to  pay  the  two  and  one-half  billion  dollars  when 
contracted.  Thus  the  United  States,  after  paying" 
a  billion  and  a  half  on  its  principal,  and  three  bil- 
lions interest  is  as  much  in  debt  as  if  nothing  had 
been  paid.  That  is  measured  in  all  products  and 
property.  And  this  is  but  a  sample  of  all  other 
debtors  in  the  last  twenty  to  thirty  years.  Is  it 
any  wonder  there  is  panic  and  bankruptcy?  Some 
ingenious  reasoners  say  the  low  price  of  products 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  39 

is  caused  by  the  increased  production  of  the  wheat- 
fields  of  E^ypt,  India,  Russia  and  the  Argentine 
RepubHc. 

But  they  should  remember  these  are  old  com- 
petitors, except  the  Argentine  Republic,  and  the  fa- 
cility for  distribution  and  the  increase  of  population 
make  up  for  the  increased  production.  This  argu- 
ment does  not  answer  the  question.  No  new  fields 
have  been  opened  up  in  Egypt  or  India  in  a  thous- 
and years  and  but  few  in  Russia  in  recent  times,  the 
new  fields  of  South  America  with  their  Mosaic  sys- 
tem of  culture  can  not  account  for  so  great  a  change. 
It  is  found  elsewhere  in  the  struggle  for  gold  which 
has  produced  financial  paralysis  and  commercial 
stagnation .  As  gold  goes  up  property  and  pro- 
ducts go  down.  Besides  it  is  not  wheat  alone  that 
is  down^  but  all  products  and  property — every- 
thing but  gold.  Gold  has  increased  in  production 
almost  as  fast  as  wheat.  Why  does  not  the  same 
law  apply  to  gold? 


40 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

/ 

ALL  PARTIES  FOR  BIMETALISM. 

Why  should  we  have  bimetalism?  Because  it 
prevents  the  rich  from  cornering  the  money  of  the 
world,  and  destroying  the  property  of  the  masses. 
All  partys  agree  that  bimetalism  is  right  and  best. 
But  some  say  wait  until  other  nations  join  us  in  the 
movement.  Since  all  acknowledge  the  principle  is 
right,  the  plea  for  delay — wait  for  others — is  cow- 
ardly and  humiliating,  delusive  and  hypocritical. 

We  did  not  wait  for  other  nations  when  we  de- 
monetized silver, and  we  should  right  our  own  wrong 
regardless  of  the  protests  of  the  millionaire  gold 
owners,  who  have  taken  advantage  of  that  wrong. 

Why  should  we  wait?  We  had  no  reason  for 
the  crime  of  1873.  It  was  committed  secretly  by 
the  scheming  of  the  gold  power,  and  was  without 
the  knowledge  or  consent  of  the  people,  or  any 
large  number  of  their  representatives.  It  was  a 
fraud  upon  the  nation,  a  violation  of  the  constitution 
and  a  crime  against  humanity.  We  did  not  even 
have  the  selfish  excuse  of  England,  that  the  rest  of 
the  world  owed  us  three  times  all  the  gold  in  the 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  41 

world,  and  therefore,  we  wanted  to  treble  the 
value  of  the  dollars  we  loaned.  England  was  the 
only  country  before  us  that  had  committed  this 
suicidal  crime  against  humanity.  She  did  it  years 
before  and  had  at  least  an  excuse  for  so  doing.  We 
had  none,  and  no  nation  for  liearly  sixty  years  was 
so  cowardly  avaricious  as  to  follow  England's  dire- 
ful example.  Why  should  we  be  meaner  than  the 
rest  of  the  world  ? 

OTHER  NATIONS  FOLL©WED  OUR  EXPERIMENT. 

Our  example  in  striking  silver  down  caused 
other  nations  to  follow  us,  and  in  August,  1873, 
six  months  after  we  did  this  crime,  Germany  de- 
monetized silver,  and  France  followed  three  years 
after. 

Thus  the  United  States,  supposed  to  be  a  na- 
tion of  free  people,  struck  the  most  deadly  blow 
against  human  freedom  and  human  prosperity 
known  in  the  history  of  modern  times. 

For  its  whole  tendency  was  to  reduce  the  peo- 
ple to  helpless  penury,  and  place  them  at  the  mercy 
of  a  gold  oligarchy.  And  from  financial  slavery  it  is 
but  one  more  step  to  political  slavery. 

Why  should  we  follow  England  or  cause  other 
nations  to  follow  us  at  the  behest  of  Mammon  to  bow 
to  the  cursed  slavery  of  gold?    We  are  powerful 


42  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

enough  and  rich  enough  to  have  a  financial  poHcy 
of  our  own,  and  throw  off  the  yoke  of  financial 
slavery  to  Great  Britain  and  the  Rothchilds. 

We  should  have  a  policy  in  accord  with  hu- 
manity and  the  prosperity  of  the  people.  We  are 
a  government  of  the  people,  and  oiir  laws  should 
be  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  and  not  for  the 
avaricious  greed  of  monopolies  and  millionaires. 
The  Jeffersonian  principle  of  the  greatest  good 
to  the  greatest  number,"  and  protection  for  the 
least  and  weakest,  as  well  the  great  and  powerful 
should  predominate  in  all  our  laws. 

NO  REASON  W^HY  WE  SHOULD  WAIT. 

There  never  has  been  international  money  and 
never  likely  to  be.  International  bi-mctalism  is 
about  as  probable  as  an  international  tariff,  and  its 
advocacy  is  a  pretense  and  a  fraud. 

It  is  not  any  nearer  consummation  now  than 
ten  or  twenty  years  ago.  Though  the  people  of 
all  gold  countries  want  it,  the  millionaire  bankers 
and  financiers  control  legislation  and  prevent  it. 
And  will  continue  to  do  so.  Those  who  talk  of  an 
international  bi-metalic  commission  do  so  to  deceive 
the  people  and  make  delay  in  the  settlement  of  this 
question.    They  have  been  using  this  deception 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  43 

for  many  years,  till  they  have  worn  it  thread  bare, 
and  are  waiting  hoping  the  clamor  of  the  people 
will  cease  and  the  gold  standard  will  forever  be 
fastened  on  this  country  in  the  interest  of  gold  oli- 
garchy. Why  should  we  abdicate  self-government 
on  this  question, 'when  we  assume  to  make  our  own 
laws  on  every  other?  We  are  again  fighting  the 
battle  for  independence  from  all  other  nations,  and 
for  the  right  of  self  government 


44 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

BI-METALISM    AND    CONCURRENT     CIRCULATION  ARE 
DIFFERENT. 

Mr.  Carlisle,  in  his  speech  at  Chicago,  and 
others,  claimed  we  never  had  bi-metalism  because 
gold  largely  went  out  of  the  country  from  1792  to 
1834,  and  after  that  silver  left  us  and  gold  re- 
mained because  of  the  change  in  the  ratio.  This 
is  not  discussing  bi-metalism,  but  concurrent  circu- 
lation of  gold  and  silver  in  equal  amounts.  Ac- 
cording to  them  there  can  be  no  bi-metalism  unless 
there  are  as  many  gold  dollars  as  silver  dollars  in 
circulation  at  the  same  time,  and  vice  versa. 

This  is  a  subterfuge  and  a  sophistry.  Bi- 
metalism  from  their  version  of  it,  requires  every 
citizen  to  carry  as  many  gold  dollars  in  one  pocket 
as  he  carries  silver  dollars  in  the  other — an  impos- 
sible absurdity — that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question. 

Bi-metalism  is  the  free,  unlimited  coinage  of 
both  gold  and  silver  as  standard  or  primary  money. 

Concurrent  circulation  of  both  metals  in  equal 
mounts  has  never  been  attempted  or  maintained 


Mr.  Cleveland's  emisaries  trying  to  pursuade  the  eminent 
.  English  bi  metalist,  Mr.  Balfcur,  that  he  is  a  crank. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  47 

by  any  nation  on  earth,  and  never  will  be  under 
any  system. 

As  to  circulation  there  is  no  country  in  the  world 
where  silver  does  not  circulate  more  abundantly 
and  freely  than  gold.  Gold  is  a  theoretic  money. 
In  good  times  no  one  cares  for  it.  In  hard  times 
no  one  can  get  it.  It  is  not  in  general  use  as  cur- 
rency in  many  countries  but  more  as  a  basis  for  pa- 
per money.  When  Mr.  Carlisle  and  others  speak 
of  so  many  millions  in  circulation,  they  don't  mean 
actual  circulation,  but  that  so  much  is  locked  up 
in  the  bank  and  treasury  vaults — held  as  reserve — 
that  rarely  sees  the  face  of  man  or  the  light  of  day. 
It  is  lar^e  metal  value  in  small  compass  to  hide  or 
run  off  with  in  an  emergency. 

Of  the  gold  of  the  United  States  about  one- 
half  is  held  as  reserve  by  the  banks,  and  one-fourth 
as  reserve  by  the  government — and  there  is  not 
fifty  millions  in  circulation.  It  is  simply  dead  use- 
less hoarded  wealth.  And  the  country  would  be 
better  off  if  it  held  its  value  in  iron,  copper,  zinc, 
tin  or  any  useful  metal;  or  any  article  of  commerce 
like  wheat,  corn  or  cotton. 

SILVER  STILL  MEASURES  THE  VALUE  OF  THE  WORLD^S 
PRODUCTS. 

Silver  is  the  practical,  useful,  active  metal 
money  of  the  world.     It  is  in  general  use  by  all 


48  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

the  fifteen  hundred  millions  of  its  people,  while 
scarcely  a  million  or  two  use  gold  orenerally  as  a 
currency. 

Silver  fixes  the  value  of  the  property  and  pro- 
ducts of  the  world,  and  has  done  so  from  the  earli- 
est ages  of  its  history.  The  toilers  and  producers 
of  the  world's  wealth  have  been  paid  in  this  metal 
since  the  beginning  of  commerce. 

The  gold  standard  men  say  gold  is  the  money 
of  the  world,  but  it  is  false.  Gold  is  the  money  of 
the  rich,  and  only  the  rich.  The)'  alone  hoard  it 
in  hard  times  and  gamble  with  it  in  good  times — 
and  juggle  with  it  at  all  times  to  ruin  the  masses. 

They  say  that  silver  is  at  a  discount — that  it 
has  depreciated.  That  its  commercial  value  has 
decreased  one-half  and  that  it  is  only  a  fifty  cent 
dollar.  It  is  a  slander  on  silver.  You  can  melt  a 
silver  dollar  down,  and  at  its  bullion  value  today  it 
will  buy  as  much  wheat,  corn,  cotton  and  other 
property,  except  gold,  as  it  would  twenty  or  twen- 
ty-five years  ago,  or  before  it  was  demonetized. 
The  fifty  or  fifty-six  cents  of  bullion  silver  will  buy 
as  much  as  the  socalled  one  hundred  cents  in  1873, 
in  everything  but  gold.  Then  gold  has  gone  up 
and  silver  has  not  gone  down,  measured  by  its 
commercial  value.  If  you  have  degraded  silver, 
the  commerce  it  has  ever  ruled,  and  the  values  of 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  49 

the  world  which  it  has  ever  fixed,  has  followed  it, 
that  is  all.  But  it  has  not  gone  down  except  in 
comparison  with  gold.  The  commercial  value  of 
silver  is  as  great  as  it  was  when  it  was  conspired 
against  and  assassinated.  It  will  buy  as  much  of  the 
forty-four  articles  of  commerce  as  when  it  was  de- 
monetized. Legislation  has  fixed  a  fiat  value  upon 
gold,  and  created  a  fictitious  demand  for  it,  and 
thereby  made  a  one  hundred  cent  dollar  a  two  hun- 
dred cent  dollar  in  purchasing poiver. 

And  the  people  and  nations  who  , produce 
wealth  receive  a  one  hundred  cent  dollar  for  their 
products,  and  pay  a  two  hundred  cent  dollar  to  the 
people  and  nations  who  loan  money  and  hold 
bonds  and  fixed  investments.  Thus  the  rich  and 
the  usurers  flourish  and  the  people  are  impoverish- 
ed and  ruined.  The  farmer  cannot  sell  the  pro- 
ducts of  his  farm  for  sufficient  to  pay  his  taxes, 
and  his  labor  is  for  naught. 

The  laborer  cannot  find  employment  because 
there  is  no  profitable  industry^  and  becomes  an  un- 
willing wanderer  and  homeless  tramp.  Manufact- 
urers close  their  profitless  business  and  commerce 
languishes. 


50 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


ONLY  THE  USURER  BENEFITTED  BY  THE  GOLD 
STANDARD. 

Only  the  usurer  flourishes.  Even  he  must 
sustain  some  loss,  for  the  shrinkage  in  his  securi- 
ties at  times,  almost  overcomes  the  profit  on  the 
two  hundred  cent  dollar  he  exacts. 

He  aimed  to  contract  the  currency.  He  aimed 
to  make  money  dear.  He  has  made  it  so  dear  it 
caiinot  be  obtained.  He  wanted  good  money — 
"sound  money."  He  has  made  it  so  good  no  one 
can  get  it,  and  so  ''sound''  its  rattle  is  only  heard 
in  bank  vaults. 

The  usurer  has  ever  been  a  cunning  animal — 
a  kind  of  wolf  and  hyena  to  prey  on  unfortunate 
humanity.  He  was  forbidden  by  the  scriptures, 
and  was  supposed  not  to  exist  in  a  Christian  land, 
but  he  still  feeds  on  the  life-blood  of  the  living  and 
picks  the  bones  of  the  dead. 

He  has  ever  endeavored  to  contract  and  con- 
gest money,  and  will  answer  the  needy  like  Shy- 
lock,  '4s  it  possible  for  a  dog  to  have  money? 
Can  a  cur  lend  ten  thousand  ducats?'' 

Or,  ''My  friend,  money  is  dear!''  Of  course 
it  is  dear,  he  has  spent  his  life  lo  make  it  dear. 

Bejgium,  Germany  and  Austria,  in  the  fifties, 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  51 

demonetized  gold  because  they  thought  that  the 
discoveries  of  gold  in  California  would  make  it  too 
abundant.  And  a  leading  financial  periodical  in 
London  is  now  advocating  the  restriction  of  gold 
coinage.  Where  will  this  demonetization  end? 
Will  the  Shylocks  de  mand  diamonds? 

The  New  York  Tribune  says  ''the  world  never 
had  as  much  money  as  now."  True;  never  has 
there  been  so  many  people.  So  many  needs  for 
money.  So  many  debts  to  pay  as  now.  Never 
was  money  congested  in  banks,  or  an  unusual 
call  for  money  attended  with  such  serious  results. 
Yet  it  and  other  great  papers  would  deny  to  one- 
half  the  world's  money  the  power  to  pay  debts, 
and  thus  continue  depression  of  business  and  con- 
gestion of  money.  Idle  money  is  useless,  and  dull 
business  can  neither  borrow  or  pay  interest. 

This  is  why  interest  is  low  in  all  gold  coun- 
tries. The  profits  on  business  are  so  low  and  stag- 
nation usually  so  great  it  can  pay  but  a  very  low 
interest. 


52 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  RESTORATION  OF  SILVER  THE  ONLY  HOPE  OF 
PROSPERITY. 

The  gold  advocates  say  the  restoration  of  sil- 
ver will  bankrupt  the  country.  This  is  untrue,  it  is 
its  only  hope  of  prosperity.  The  gold  standard 
has  already  accomplished  that  sad  result.  It  is  a 
well  known  fact  that  after  the  bankers'  panic  of 
1893  force  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  law,  and 
its  repeal  that  completed  silver's  demonetization  it 
was  estimated  that  over  half  the  indebtedness  in 
the  United  States  was  in  default,  and  half  its  rail- 
roads in  the  hands  of  receivers.  And  we  have  had 
bankruptcy,  panic  and  semi-panic  ever  since. 
Could  free  silver  do  worse?  One  railroad,  the 
Atchison,  Topeka  &  Santa  Fe,  whose  construction 
cost  almost  $360,000,000,  was  sold  for  #60,000,000, 
a  loss  of  $300,000,000.  This  is  one  of  many  simi- 
lar instances.  Of  course  the  big  fish  eat  up  the 
little  ones.  The  big  rich  gobbled  the  small  fry 
stock  and  bondholders.  Another  sample  of  a  peo- 
ple's government  legislating  the  wealth  of  the 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  53 

many  into  the  hands  of  the  few.  And  still  an  in- 
dignant people  cry,  "How  long!  Oh  Lord!  how 
long?" 

HONEST  MONEY  GOLD  THE  MOST  DISHONEST. 

And  Still  the  usurer  shouts  honest  money— 
''sound  money.''  What  is  sound  money — honest 
money?  It  is  a  money  that  does  not  fluctuate  in 
value.  A  money  that  rises  in  value  or  purchasing 
power  is  just  as  dishonest  as  that  which  falls  in 
value,  but  its  effects  are  more  ruinous  as  it  bene- 
fits the  few  and  injures  the  many. 

Therefore,  the  present  gold  dollar  is  the  piost 
dishonest  dollar  in  all  the  world's  history.  Be- 
cause it  *^ reaps  where  it  has  not  sown,  and  gathers 
where  it  has  not  strewn."  It  takes  a  moiety  from 
every  man  that  it  has  not  earned,  and  adds  an  in- 
crement to  every  note,  bond  or  mortgage  which 
was  not  in  the  contract.  It  does  not  smile  alike 
upon  the  debtor  and  creditor.  It  is  too  smooth  for 
the  horny  hand  of  the  laborer. 

It  has  stricken  the  arm  of  toil  as  with  palsy, 
and  the  people  as  with  the  curse  of  penury. 

It  has  forced  our  erstwhile  rich,  proud  and 
prosperous  nation  in  times  of  peace  and  abund- 
ance, in  about  eighteen  months,  to  issue  bonds  to 
buy  gold  and  go  in  debt,  principal  and  interest, 


54  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

about  $550,000,000.  A  hundred  million  dollars 
more  than  all  the  gold  in  the  United  States.  Could 
free  silver  do  worse?  Could  honest  money  pro- 
duce such  a  curse? 

Mr.  Carlisle  says  to  remonetise  silver  will 
drive  about  $620,000,000  of  gold  out  of  circulation. 
But  Mr.  Carlisle  forgot  he  was  speaking  in  1896, 
and  that  in  a  few  years  we  have  lost,  as  the  bureau 
of  statistics  of  his  own  department  shows,  |i8i,- 
610,243,  gold  lost  by  excess  of  exportation. 
That  by  his  own  showing  we  have  only  $404,557,- 
863  of  gold  in  the  United  States. 

About  one-half  of  this  is  reserve  in  the  vaults 
of  the  banks,  and  one-fourth  reserve  of  the  govern- 
ment. It  is  thus  plain  there  is  not  and  has  not 
been  generally  fifty  million  dollars  in  gold  in  act- 
ual circulation. 

COULD  "  SOUND  "  MONEY  PRODUCE  SUCH  A  CURSE? 

This,  too,  after  paying  almost  three  billions 
dollars  interest  on  bonds  in  order  to  get  to  specie 
payment.  And  with  silver  stricken  down,  specie 
payment  means  less  than  fifty  millions  dollars  in 
gold  in  general  use  as  money  and  part  of  the  time 
none  at  all.  What  a  mess  of  potage  for  a  birth- 
right! 

Great  God!  what  billions  for  a  name!    What  a 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  55 

flow  of  wealth  to  pamper  avarice!  What  costly  in- 
cense to  burn  on  the  altar  of  Mammon!  What  a 
hecatome  of  wealth  and  blood  and  misery,  bank- 
ruptcy and  crime  to  preserve  the  accursed  slavery 
of  gold! 

It  appalls  the  imagination  and  fires  the  soul 
of  freemen  to  remember  that  the  little  handful  of 
gold  we  are  struggling  for  and  keep  locked  up  has 
cost  us  almost  four  billion  in  money — five  times 
that  in  shrinkage  and  loss  of  property,  not  count- 
ing the  toil  and  life  and  bankruptcy  of  thousands. 
For  what?  For  specie  payment?  What  is  specie 
payment?  Under  our  present  system  it  is  a  hand- 
ful of  gold  for  the  rich  to  juggle  with  to  destroy 
the  prosperity  of  the  people. 

It  has  cost  us  five  times  the  value  of  all  the  gold 
in  the  world  to  get  gold^and  yet  virtually  we  have  no 
gold!  What  a  paradox  and  a  crime!  Oh!  that  the 
insanity  of  gold  should  make  slaves  or  demons  of 
mankind. 

But  the  gold  advocates  say  we  must  continue 
this  sacrifice  to  Mammon  or  we  will  lose  our  gold 
and  be  flooded  with  silver.  We  say  the  loss  of  our 
gold  will  hurt  us  less  than  to  struggle  for  it,  and 
lose  everything  else.  It  has  already  cost  us  bil- 
lions for  naught.  What  we  have  does  little  good, 
for  it  is  hoarded  dead  wealth,  and  does  not  enter 


56  MAN  AND  MAMMON, 

into  commerce.  So  little  of  it  is  used  as  currency 
its  loss  will  not  be  felt,  and  those  who  have  it  will 
not  part  with  it  unless  it  is  for  something  else  they 
would  rather  have.  So  there  will  be  no  loss  of 
wealth  to  the  country. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


57 


CHAPTER  IX. 

NO  DANGER  OF  A  SILVER  FLOOD. 

As  to  flooding  the  country  with  silver  there  is 
no  danger  of  that.  All  the  silver  in  the  world  is 
said  to  make  a  cube  of  only  sixty-six  feet,  and  it 
could  all  be  stored  in  the  basement  of  the  treasury 
building  at  Washington,  and  have  room  for  almost 
as  much  more.  Besides,  no  country  has  a  surplus 
of  silver;  there  is  no  large  amount  of  silver  bullion 
in  the  world  outside  of  the  United  States  treasury. 
No  nation  can  spare  any  large  amount  of  silver. 
If  we  get  more  silver  it  will  be  in  exchange  for  some- 
thing we  would  rather  have,  and  we  would  be  the 
richer  on  account  of  it. 

Our  farmers  would  gladly  exchange  their  sur- 
plus products  and  our  manufacturers  their  surplus 
goods  for  it,  and  at  better  prices. 

This  would  set  the  furnaces  to  burnino-  the 
spindles  to  whirling,  the  spade  and  plow  and  loom 
to  moving — and  this  would  be  commerce,  business, 
activity  and  prosperity, 

But  they  say  we  would  have  a  debased  cur- 
rency.   This  is  untrue,  standard  silver  never  was 


58  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

But  they  say  we  would  have  a  debased  cur- 
rency. 

As  before  stated,  ^old  is  so  little  in  general 
use  as  currency,  and  is  hid  so  quickly  when  most 
needed  it  scarcely  deservee  the  name  of  currency. 
And  when  so  used  is  often  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 

WE  CAN  HAVE  TWO  STANDARDS. 

But  they  say  we  can  not  have  two  standard. 
This  is  false.  There  can  and  must  be  as  many 
standards  as  there  are  kinds  of  metal  money.  They 
say  that  we  can  have  but  one  bushel  measure — one 
yardstick — and  gold  is  that  measure  or  yardsticks. 
This  is  absurd.  You  don't  pay  in  bushel  measures 
or  yard  sticks.  There  are  as  many  kinds  of  meas- 
ures of  value^  or  yardsticks,  as  there  are  kinds  of 
metal  money.  This  rule  also  a'-.plies  to  ar- 
ticles of  commerce.  Coon  skins  in  the  west  used 
to  be  a  measure  of  value  and  means  of  exchange. 
The  value  of  wheat  may  be  measured  in  corn  and 
so  on  through  all  the  articles  of  commerce. 

The  law  makes  the  yardstick  or  fiat  value  of  all 
money,  and  there  must  be  as  many  kinds  as  there 
are  kinds  of  metal  money. 

They  say  why  not  make  money  out  of  iron  or 
copper? 

This  may  be  answered  by  asking  why  not 
make  diamonds  out  of  glass  beads,  or  pearls  out  of 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  59 

grains  of  sand?  Of  course  it  might  be  possible, 
but  not  likely,  and  they  do  not  accord  in  use  and 
value.  It  is  true  Lycurgus  banished  all  gold  and 
silver  from  Sparta  and  made  iron  its  only  money. 
This  created  a  great  race  of  soldiers  and  patriots, 
whose  courage  was  the  wonder  of  the  world,  be- 
cause it  banished  the  avarice  and  arrogance  of 
riches,  But  to  put  iron  and  copper  on  an  equality 
with  silver  and  gold,  the  precious  metals — the  twin 
money  metals  of  the  world — would  be  an  absurdity, 
and  does  not  accord  with  '  'the  eternal  fitness  of 
things. "  With  two  great  money  metals  there  should 
be  a  double  standard,  anything  else  is  monetary 
anarchy. 

GOLD*  HAS  NO  INTRINSIC  VALUE. 

Again  they  say  gold  has  an  intrinsic  value, 
and  a  gold  dollar  has  a  dollar's  worth  of  intrinsic 
value  in  it  because  it  has  25.8  grains  of  gold  in  it. 
Another  falacy:  Iron,  copper,  zinc  and  lead  have 
more  intrinsic  value  than  gold,  because  they  are 
more  useful  to  mankind.  Mankind  could  spare 
gold  much  better  than  these  useful  metals.  Gold 
is  useless  except  for  vain  ornament  or  delusive 
money.  There  is  no  intrinsic  value  in  a  gold  dol- 
lar. 


6o  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

Its  value  consists  in  a  fiat  value  fixed  by  law, 
and  accepted  by  the  world.  Silver,  if  as  generally 
sustained  by  law,  would  maintain  equal  fiat  value 
with  gold;  and  gold,  if  restricted  in  coinage  and 
value  by  law,  would  depreciate  as  silver  has  done, 
commercial  value  follows  the  legal  or  fiat  value  of 
money,  and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  intrinsic 
value  in  either  metal. 

The  delusive  argument  that  a  gold  dollar  is  a 
sound  dollar,  or  an  honest  dollar,  because  of  its 
supposed  intrinsic  value  comes  to  naught.  Take 
away  the  legal  fiat  value  and  all  that  twaddle  about 
intrinsic  value  goes  with  it.  It  would  then  fluctu- 
ate like  any  commodity  of  commerce  dependent 
upon  supply  and  demand. 

In  proof  that  the  legal  fiat  value  controls  and 
fixes  the  value  and  ratio  of  money,  from  1492  to 
1700  the  ratio  between  gold  and  silver  was  only 
10^2  to  I,  and  that  prevailed  the  world  over  be- 
cause the  laws  of  Spain  fixed  that  ratio,  and  she 
was  deemed  a  first  class  nation. 

Thus  for  over  200  years  in  modern  times  this 
so-called  intrinsic  value  of  gold  was  less  than  two- 
thirds  its  present  value.  And  in  Rome,  in  58  B.  C, 
it  was  8.93  to  I,  because  the  laws  of  Rome  fixed 
that  ratio  of  value.  This  was  when  there  was  twice 
as  much  silver  as  gold  in  the  world,  and  demon- 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


6i 


strates  the  fact  that  increased  production  has  no 
effect  on  the  value  of  ^old  and  silver  as  long  as 
there  is  an  unlimited  demand.  As  there  has  al- 
ways been  and  is  always  likely  to  be  an  unlimited 
demand  for  these  metals,  there  can  be  no  over- 
production and  no  falling  in  value  on  that  account. 

Thus,  when  there  was  twice  as  much  silver  as 
gold,  silver  was  high  and  gold  was  cheap,  8. 93  to 
I,  and  loj^  to  i,  now  they  are  about  equal,  and 
gold  is  dear  and  silver  is  cheap.  Why?  Because 
the  law  favors  gold  and  restricts  and  depreciates 
silver.  Intrinsic  value  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question. 

To  illustrate  again" there  is  $84,000,000  of  the 
Bank  of  England  notes  that  is  pure  fiat  money, 
created  by  an  act  of  parliament.  The  law  upholds 
it  and  makes  it  as  good  as  any  other  money,  and 
yet  it  is  only  a  piece  of  paper  and  has  no  intrinsic 
value. 


64 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  X. 

A  FIFTY-CENT    DOLLAR   CAN    BE    LEGISLATED   INTO  A 
ONE   HUNDRED    CENT  DOLLAR. 

The  gold  advocates  say  they  cannot  legislate 
a  50-cent  dollar  into  a  loo-cent  dollar.  Well, 
that  is  untrue  also.  If  a  50-cent  silver  dollar  now 
passes  for  a  loo-cent  dollar  as  they  claim,  then  the 
thing  is  already  done,  and  they  are  simply  trying 
to  deny  in  one  way  what  they  assert  is  true  in  an- 
other. 

If  you  can  legislate  six  dollars  more  into  an 
ounce  of  gold, and  eight  dollars  more  into  16  ounces 
of  silver  as  has  been  done  by  Spain  and  Rome,  or 
legislate  200  cents  purchasing  power  into  a  dollar 
in  gold  as  now  exists,  then  the  other  is  not  diffi- 
cult. In  all  these  changes  commerce  had  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter — it  was  simply  a  mat- 
ter of  legislation.  Lycurgus  banished  gold  and 
silver  from  Sparta  and  made  iron  their  only  money 
for  200  years;  now  iron  was  not  used  for  money 
by  any  other  nation,  yet  iron  was  worth  in  Sparta 
just  what  the  law  said  it  was  worth. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  65 

Our  present  financial  legislation,  by  favoring 
gold,  depresses  the  so-called  commercial  value  of 
siver,  yet  as  silver  goes  down  property  and 
products  go  down,  and  the  so-called  50-cent  dollar 
buys  100  cents  worth  of  all  the  forty-four  articles 
of  commerce,  and  just  as  much  as  it  did  twenty 
or  thirty  years  ago,  or  ever  did,  while  a  gold  dol- 
lar buys  two  dollars  worth. 

This  is  almost  entirely  the  result  of  discrimi- 
nating legislation — commerce  simply  following  the 
bent  of  legislation. 

Occasionally  the  gold  men  unwillingly  admit 
that  legislation  affects  the  value  of  money  as  well 
as  everything  else. 

Congressman  Josiah  Patterson,  the  recog- 
nized champion  of  the  gold  standard,  in  his  speech 
at  Kansas  City  March  17,  1896,  reported  in  The 
Times,  said:  ^'The  purchasing  power  of  the  sil- 
ver dollar  is  not  regulated  by  the  commercial  value 
of  the  substance  that  composes  it,  but  is  held  on  a 
parity  by  legal  devices.  For  instance,  if  you  were 
to  try  the  gold  and  the  silver  dollar  by  fire,  you  would 
find  that  the  gold  dollar,  when  melted,  would  have 
a  value  exactly  equal  to  to  its  purchasing  powers 
when  it  was  in  the  form  of  a  coin,  whereas,  if  you 
melted  the  silver  dollar,  the  bullion  would  be  worth 
only  fifty-three  cents,  and  would  fall  forty-seven 


66 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


cents  short  of  its  purchasing  power  in  the  form  of 
money.  Now,  why  is  this?  -  It  is  because  we  have 
no  free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver.  " 

So  a  gold  standard  advocate  admits  that  the 
reason  the  silver  in  a  silver  dollar,  when  in  the 
form  of  bullioh  is  not  worth  a  dollar  '  'is  because 
we  do  7iot  have  free  arid  unlimited  coinage  of  sil- 
ver, ' ' 

He  admits  that  silver  has  been  depreciated 
through  legislation.  Just  what  all  bi-metallists 
have  always  claimed,  but  which  gold  advocates 
have  heretofore  denied.  The  old  adage  applies: 
''give  a  calf  sufficient  rope  and  it  will  hang  itself.'' 
— give  a  gold  man  time  and  he  will  sometimes  ad- 
mit the  truth  and  show  the  iolly  of  his  position. 
These  gold  men  are  continuous  and  persistent  in 
calling  the  present  silver  dollar  a  fifty-cent  dollar, 
yet  if  it  is  so  they  made  it  so,  as  Mr.  Patterson 
states,  "by  denying  it  free  and  unlimited  coinage." 
They  should  cease  this  cry  of  fifty-cent  dollar,  and 
if  they  do  not,  every  free  silver  man  should  answer 
them:  'Tf  it  is  a  fifty-cent  dollar  you  gold  men 
made  it  so.  You  denied  it  admission  to  the  mints, 
and  now  you  call  attention  to  your  own  crime. 
You  should  be  ashamed  of  your  own  villiany  and 
cease  to  abuse  the  victim  of  your  treachery  for  the 
benefit  of  plutocratic  greed.'' 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


67 


A  DISHONEST  ARGUMENT. 

They  say  the  price  of  silver  bullion  since  it 
was  demonetized  has  decreased  until  it  is  worth 
only  about  half  what  it  was  when  struck  down  by 
unfriendly  legislation.  If  true,  it  is  a  dishonest 
attempt  to  take  advantage  of  their  own  wrong, 
which  is  not  permitted  in  equity.  This  is  the  ar- 
gument of  a  ruffian  who  knocks  a  man  down  and 
maims  him,  and  then  refuses  to  make  reparation 
because  the  man  is  not  as  strong  as  he  was  before 
the  assault. 

Let  us  illustrate  this  in  another  way.  Wheat 
has  been  used  for  bread,  like  silver  has  been  used 
for  money  from  time  immemorial.  Suppose 
Congress  should  pass  a  law  that  wheat  should  not 
be  used  for  bread.  Thereupon,  the  principal  use 
of  wheat  being  taken  away  wheat  falls  one-half  in 
price.  Afterwards  the  people  begin  to  starve  and 
clamor  for  bread.  What  kind  of  base  logic  would 
it  be  for  those  who  procured  the  law  and  cornered 
all  the  other  provisions  to  say:  ''They  must  starve 
because  wheat  is  too  cheap  and  the  other  provis- 
ions are  too  high.  It  is  absurd  to  give  them 
wheat  because  it  has  fallen  one-half  since  they  used 
it  for  bread.'' 

Yet  this  is  the  stock  argument  of  the  gold  ad- 


68 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


vocates.  "Silver  is  down/'  they  say;  we  knocked 
it  down  by  legislative  blows,  but  we  will  not  rein- 
state it  because  it  is  only  worth  half  what  it  was 
when  we  knocked  it  down.  The  people  need  money, 
but  they  must  not  have  silver  because  it  is  too  cheap. 
Gold  they  cannot  get,  it  is  too  high — therefore  they 
must  do  without.  They  must  starve,  beg,  become 
criminals  or  tramps.'' 

Oh!  the  cold-blooded  dishonesty  of  such  an 
argument;  the  ghastly  selfishness  of  such  reason- 
ing and  such  hypocricy  ! 

WHY  FAVOR  THE  GOLD  MINER  AND  OPPRESS  THE 
SILVER  MINER. 

The  opponents  of  silver  say  why  should  the 
government  favor  the  silver  mine  owner  ?  We 
answer,  why  should  the  gold  mine  owner  alone  be 
the  favored  object  of  the  government's  partiality 
and  munificence?  Why  is  gold  the  pampered  idol 
of  class  legislation.  It  is  this  truckling  extreme 
idolatry  to  gold  and  its  owners  that  m^kes  mankind 
curse  its  slavery.  Fairness,  equality  and  justice  is 
what  all  the  world  desires.  No  man  objects  to 
gold  as  gold,  or  wealth  and  riches  within  them- 
selves. Thank  heaven!  there  are  many  noble  rich 
men,  and  I  honor  them.  It  is  the  idolatry  of  gold 
— the  arrogance  of  wealth  that  is  to  be  deplored. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


69 


But  why  should  we  not  favor  silver  and  silver 
mine  owners  as  well  as  gold  and  gold  mine  own- 
ers? Silver  is  one  of  our  greatest  products.  We 
produce  more  of  it  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
besides.  Should  we  not  protect  our  own  greatest 
products?  It  is  our  interest  and  duty  to  do  so.  Al! 
other  countries  in  all  ages  have. 

When  Rome  owned  the  mines  of  the  world 
she  fixed  the  ratio  at  8.93  to  i.  Spain,  when  she 
owned  the  great  silver  mines  of  America,  held  sil- 
ver up  and  made  the  ratio  to^^  to  i.  Are  we  the 
only  financial  idiots  and  cowards  the  world  has  ever 
produced? 


70 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

CAN  THE  UNITED  STATES  ALONE  HOLD  SILVER  UP? 

Again  they  say,  can  the  the  United  States  re- 
store silver  and  hold  it  up  at  i6  to  i  here  and  the 
world  over?  Certainly  it  can,  and  do  it  easy,  in  my 
opinion.  Did  not  France  hold  it  up  all  over  the 
world  at  15^  to  t  three  years  after  the  other  na- 
tions had  demonetized  it? 

We  can  do  what  she  did,  certainly.  We  have 
ten  times  the  territory  ,  and  about  twice  her  wealth 
and  population.  We  can  do  what  Rome  and  Spain 
did.  We  have  more  wealth  and  more  power  than 
they  ever  had. 

The  commission  appointed  by  the  British  Par- 
liament in  1887,  to  investigate  the  cause  of  the 
fluctuation  in  value  between  gold  and  silver,  re- 
ported: "That  as  long  as  any  first  class  nation 
kept  its  mints  open  to  the  admission  of  silver,  sil- 
ver maintained  its  par  value  with  gold  at  15  to  i 
the  world  over." 

It  instanced  France,  and  said  that  no  person 
owning  silver  the  world  over  would  take  less  than 
its  coin  value  in  the  mints  of  France. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  71 

This  is  the  condensed  substance  of  the  report 
of  hard-headed  ^old  standard  Englishmen,  who 
had  no  motive  to  misrepresent  or  deceive. 

We  are  certainly  a  first  class  nation,  and  can 
uphold  silver  in  our  own  interest,  and  when  other 
nations  see  we  have  the  courage  of  our  convictions, 
and  know  how  to  protect  our  own  interests,  they 
will  follow  our  example  and  restore  silver  as  stand- 
ard money  the  world  over.  This  is  the  opinion  of 
Cernuschi,  Mr.  Moreton,  Frewen  and  others  of  the 
most  celebrated  European  bi-metallists.  They  do 
not  hesitate  any  longer  in  advising  independent 
action  on  our  part,  because  of  the  great  delay  in 
securing  international  action.  And  they  believe 
we  can  thus  cause  the  other  nations  to  speedily 
follow  us. 

Another  reason  why  we  could  hold  silver  up  to 
ts  present  ratio  is  because  we  have  $76,037,000,- 
000  of  the  best  property  on  earth  subject  to  taxation, 
which  is  a  first  lien  thereon,  which  amount  of  prop- 
erty would  hold  up  four  billions  of  silver  if  neces- 
sary, though  it  would  not  have  half  that  amount  to 
take  care  of. 

Besides,  as  the  silver  dollar  restored  would  be 
standard  money,  and  full  legal  tender  for  debts,  it 
would  not  need  to  be  held  up,  but  would  be  quickly 
absorbed  in  new  vitalized  business  activities^  **and 


72  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

bless  him  that  giveth  and  him  that  receiveth,''  and 
continue  its  career  of  beneficence. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   HONOR  AND   CREDIT  OF  THE   GOVERNMENT  NOT 

INVOLVED. 

We  all  agree  that  the  honor  and  credit  of  the 
United  States  must  be  preserved.  This  is  not  a 
party  question,  neither  is  it  a  debatable  question. 

We  have  heard  much  from  the  opponents  of 
silver  about  the  honor  of  the  government.  They 
put  it  in  flaming  lines  at  the  head  of  metropolitan 
papers,  they  cable  from  Paris,  ^*No  compromise 
with  dishonor. Of  course  not.  Who  said  any- 
thing about  dishonoring  the  government? 

Ah!  it  is  the  old  trick  of  the  real  thief  crying: 
''Stop,  thief!  stop,  thief!!"  to  mislead  his  pursuers. 
''It  is  the  voice  of  Jacob,  but  the  hand  of  Esau." 

This  same  Esau  that  has  been  robbing  the  na- 
tion and  trampling  on  its  laws  for  decades,  like 
the  Irishman  when  the  judge  assured  him  he 
should  have  justice,  who  replied^  "Sure,  your  hon- 
or, it  is  that  that  I  am  afraid  of. 


MAxNT  AND  MAMMON.  73 

Let  the  most  fastidious  conscience  rest  at  ease. 
Let  the  honest  man  and  patriot  "sleep  the  sleep  of 
the  just/'  for  the  government's  honor  is  not  in- 
volved in  this  question. 

It  is  a  pity  to  stop  the  anxious  tears  of  these 
over-fed  presidents  of  trusts  and  s}^ndicates.  But 
it  is  true.  I  recently  remarked  to  two  of  them  who 
were  shouting  dishonor:  "All  the  money  and 
bonds  of  the  government  are  payable  in  coin." 
**But  that  means  gold,"  shouted  the  bond-holders 
in  chorus. 

*'Ah!  but  does  it?  Th(i  bonds  were  issued 
before  silver  was  demonetized.  They  vrere  all 
payable  in  coin  and  the  unit  of  value  up  to  1873, 
was  the  present  silver  dollar.  They  were  all  is- 
sued prior  to  that  time.  The  benefit  or  value  re- 
ceived was  in  silver,  the  contract  price  was  silver 
or  greenbacks,  which  were  not  so  good.  Can  any 
dishonor  or  discredit  arise  from  paying  in  the  same 
standard  as  we  received  from  our  creditors,  and 
accordmg  to  the  contract?" 

''But  times  have  changed,"  said  they,  "money 
is  dearer,  silver  is  down."  ''No,"  I  answered, 
"Silver  will  buy  more  than  ever  it  would.  While 
the  gold  dollar  you  did  not  pay,  but  now  claim, 
will  buy  two  dollars  worth  of  anything.  Now,  do 
you  claim  that  you  bond-holders  are  privileged 


74  MAN  AND  MAMMON 

aristocrats  and  should  have  better  money  than  you 
paid,  and  better  than  the  contract  calls  for?  If 
you  do  prepare  for  reminiscences.  Do  you  remem- 
ber that  you  received  your  bonds  for  g^reenbacks 
you  got  at  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar,  when  there  was 
neither  gold  or  silver  in  circulation.  And  you  have 
received  interest  in  gold  which  the  contract  did  not 
call  for.  Now  you  want  200-cent  dollars  in  gold. 
And  if  the  government  don't  pay  you  in  gold  you 
think  the  government  dishonored?" 

"Yes  we  do!"  they  answered. 

'  *My  opinion,"  I  replied^  "is  that  if  the  gov- 
ernment paid  you  in  gold  it  would  then  dishonor 
itself^  and  you  would  be  the  recipient  of  stolen 
property,  and  ought  to  be  prosecuted  for  a  com- 
mon cheat." 

''Well/'  they  replied  with  some  warmth, 
*  'gold  is  the  standard  now,  and  we  want  gold,  we 
expected  the  government  to  pay  us  gold.'' 

THE  STANLEY  MATTHEWS  RESOLUTION. 

^ 'No,  you  did  not,  "  I  replied  with  some 
warmth  also.  "If  you  know  anything  you  know 
the  government,  before  specie  payment  was  re- 
sumed on  January  28,  1873,  gave  notice  by  legis- 
lative action  that  all  her  bonds  were  payable  in  the 
present  silver  -dollar.    Here  is  the  language  of  the 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  75 

Stanley  Matthews  concurrent  resolution  passed  by 
the  United  States  Senate^  January  25,  and  by  the 
House,  January  28,  1878:  'That  all  the  bonds  of 
the  United  States  issued  or  authorized  to  be  issued 
under  the  said  acts  of  Congress,  hereinbefore  re- 
cited, are  payable,  principal  and  interest,  at  the 
option  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,  in 
silver  dollars  of  the  coinage  of  the  United  States 
containing  41 2 grains  each  of  standard  silver;  and 
that  to  restore  to  its  coinage  such  silver  coins  as  a 
legal  tender  in  payment  of  said  bonds^  principal 
and  interest,  is  not  in  violation  of  the  public  faith, 
nor  in  derogation  of  the  rights  of  the  public  cred- 
itor.'" 

"Well,  Mr.  Bondholder,  what  do  you  say  to 
that?"  They  were  somewhat  startled  and  exam- 
ined the  law  closely.  Then  one  of  them  remarked, 
"Why,  that  old  law,  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it. 
That  does  settle  it,  the  United  States  did  serve 
notice  on  all  the  world  that  all  her  bonds  were 
payable  in  the  present  silver  dollar  almost  twenty 
years  ago,  and  before  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ment.   How  did  that  slip  my  mind?" 

'  'Perhaps  it  is  easy  to  forget  that  which  it  is 
unpleasant  to  remember/'  I  replied.  ''But  you 
did  not  forget  to  shriek  dishonor  against  the  gov- 
ernment, when  the  governments  honor  is  not  in- 


76  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

volved.  Now  acknowledge  the  truth  that  the 
United  States  can  pay  all  its  bonds  in  silver  dol- 
lars, as  it  agreed  to  do,  and  no  one  has  a  right  to 
complain,  and  the  honor  and  credit  of  the  nation 
is  fully  sustained. " 

"It  is  true,  very  true,''  they  answered.  ''Now 
answer  another  question,  '  'Would  it  not  be  a  crime 
against  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  a  dis- 
honor and  discredit  to  it  to  pay  its  bonds  in  gold 
under  the  laws,  and  the  facts  that  have  existed, 
and  still  exist?" 

^  'It  would  certainly  show  incompetency  on  the 
part  of  the  government,  and  that  it  did  not  have 
sense  enough  to  protect  its  own  people. "  They 
answered  slowly,  then  added,  ''But  what  should  it 
do  with  the  $262,000,000  bonds  issued  by  Mr. 
Cliveland?"  they  inquired. 

"They  come  under  the  same  law.  They  were 
issued  under  the  law  providing  for  specie  pay- 
ment way  back  on  January  14,  1875.  This  law  was 
obsolete  and  said  bonds  are,  to  say  the  least,  of 
doubtful  validity,  and  the  legality  of  their  issue  may 
be  questioned  hereafter. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN'S  POSITION. 

"Now  after  our  great  national  debt  was  con- 
tracted, the  government  proceeded  to  draw  in  and 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  77 

contract  its  currency,  thus  enhancing  the  value  of 
the  bonds  and  the  difficulty  of  securing  money  and' 
paying  them.    Was  this  right?"  I  asked. 

They  answered:  "That  course  certainly  ben- 
fitted  the  bonholders,  but  increased  the  burdens  of 
the  people,  who  have  to  pay  the  bonds." 

"Now  you  answer  correctly,"  I  said.  *4t 
was  a  crime  against  the  people.  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, always  a  friend  of  the  people,  said  it  was  a 
''heinous  crime. "  This  is  the  language  in  which 
he  expressed  himself: 

'Tf  a  government  contracted  a  debt  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  money  in  circulation,  and  then  con- 
tracted the  money  volume  before  the  debt  was 
paid,  it  is  the  most  heinous  C7'ime  that  a  govern- 
ment could  commit  against  the  people.'' 

''Now,  my  friends,  you  were  denouncing  the 
government  awhile  ago  as  being  guilty  of  dishonor 
if  it  paid  its  bonds  and  money  in  silver.  Now  you 
have  a  great  man  who  not  only  denounced  the 
payment  of  these  bonds  in  gold  as  a  crime,  but 
the  contraction  of  the  currency  before  they  are 
paid  as  a  heinous  crime  against  the  people.  So 
you  see  that  the  government  has  already  dishonor- 
•ed  itself  to  satisfy  these  avaricious  cormorants,  and 
what  they  regard  as  honorable  and  honest,  Mr. 


78  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

Lincoln  and  all  patriots  regard  as  a  dishonor  and  a 
crime. 

"Now,  who  are  the  the  best  judges  of  this 
question,  the  greedy  beneficiaries  or  the  disinter- 
ested patriots?" 

They  seemed  very  much  crestfallen  and  an- 
swered: "Well,  Mr.  Lincoln  ought  to  have  some 
ideas  of  justice  and  honor,  and  we  never  before  un- 
N  derstood  the  question  or  we  would  have  said  the 
honor  and  credit  of  the  government  is  not  involved 
in  the  free  coinage  of  silver.'' 

"Silver  might  be  restored  tomorrow,''  I  said, 
"and  no  man  could  justly  complain  or  cry  injus. 
tice  or  dishonor.    Is  not  that  true?'' 

'*It  is,''  they  answered.  ''The  government 
has  given  ample  notice  from  the  beginning  that 
it  will  pay  in  the  standard  it  received,  according 
to  the  contract,  and  in  silver  dollars.'' 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


79 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

WHAT  THE  POLICY  TO  PRESERVE  THE  PARITY  MEANS. 

The  gold  advocates  claim  most  unreasonable 
things  for  that  clause  in  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman 
bill,  which  declares  the  policy  of  the  government 
to  maintain  '  'the  parity  in  value  between  the  two 
metals/'  Their  obtuseness  is  remarkable,  having 
all  the  wild-eyed  insanity  of  the  anarchist  in  the 
extreme  latitude  of  their  claims  and  vagaries. 

Some  claim  it  binds  the  United  States,  or  the 
President,  to  issue  untold  millions  of  bonds  to  buy 
gold  to  keep  up  the  parity — or  even  call  out  the 
army  for  that  purpose. 

One  violent  silver-hating  metropolitan  paper, 
in  an  editorial  claims  that  the  honor  of  the  nation 
is  pledged  to  indefinite  millions  of  bond  issues  for 
this  purpose  for  all  ages  to  come,  and  that  if  we 
cease  or  falter,  then  are  we  dishonored,  discredited 
and  damned.  Gracious!  it  makes  our  patriotic 
blood  run  cold  to  think  what  fearful  things  we  are 
bound  to  do,  because  of  this  little  harmless  speech 


8o  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

injected  into  the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  Act  by 
Senator  Voorhees,  as  a  friendly  concession  to  sil- 
ver.   Let  us  examine  this  act. 

On  November  i,  1893,  the  Sherman  bill  was 
repealed  and  the  following  clause  was  added: 
"And  it  is  hereby  declared  to  be  the  policy  of  the 
United  States  to  continue  the  use  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver as  standard  money^  and  to  coin  both  gold  and 
silver  into  money  of  equal  intrinsic  and  exchang- 
able  value,  such  equality  to  be  secured  thVough  in- 
ternational agreement,  or  by  such  safeguards  of 
legislation  as  will  insure  the  maintainance  of  the 
parity  in  the  value  of  coins  of  the  two  metals,  and 
the  equal  power  of  every  dollar  at  all  times  in  the 
markets,  and  in  the  payment  of  debts." 

Is  there  any  authority  in  this  for  issuing  bonds 
to  buy  gold  to  maintain  the  parity?  On  the  con- 
trary, is  it  not  simply  a  declaration  of  mtention  to 
provide  other  safeguards  of  legislation  to  uphold 
silver,  and  what  other  safeguard  ^could  have  been 
meant,  in  case  of  international  agreement  failing, 
but  the  free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver,  so  it 
would  have  an  equal  chance  in  law  with  gold. 

Declaring  a  policy  or  intention  binds  no  one, 
without  another  law  authorizing  the  specific  execu- 
tion and  enforcement  of  that  intention,  and  how  it 
shall  be  carried  out. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  8i 

So  this  does  not  authorize  any  action,  nor  ef- 
fect the  honor  or  credit  of  the  government  in  any 
manner  whatever. 

The  government  may  change  its  policy  or  in- 
tention at  any  time,  as  often  as  agreeable,  and  no 
one  has  any  right  to  complain. 

In  fact,  is  it  the  high  prerogative  of  each  Con- 
gress to  declare  any  intention  or  policy  a  majority 
may  favor. 

It  is  said  that  Hades  is  paved  with  good  in- 
tentions, and  legislative  policies  unless  enacted  in- 
to law  have  no  force  and  authority. 

Howevei,  as  those  possessed  with  the  gold 
lunacy  have  made  such  extravagantly  wild  claims 
for  this  clause;  they  should  not  feel  inconsolable 
if  the  next  Congress  should  carry  out  the  policy 
therein  expressed  and  place  those  ^'safeguards  of 
legislation,"  that  was  doubtless  in  the  mind  of 
Senator  Voorhees,  in  case  of  no  international 
agreement  having  been  secured,  to- wit:  ''the  free 
and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver  at  the  present  ratio, 
so  as  to  give  it  equal  safeguards  of  legislation  with 
gold."    So  mote  it  be. 

Any  claim  on  account  of  this  clause  that  it 
would  authorize  the  President  or  any  one  to  do 
anything  whatever  to  preserve  the  parity,  is  a  far- 
fetched and  untenable  presumption.    It  would  be 


82 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


a  blunder  in  accord  with  the  present  administra- 
tion's course  in  issuing  $262,000,000  bonds, under  a 
law  obsolete  for  fifteen  years,  after  claiming  no  au- 
thority so  to  do  for  a  year,  and  asking  authority  of 
Congress,  which  was  properly  refused.  Of  course 
those  bonds  were  not  issued  by  authority  of  law, 
as  any  lawyer  knows  who  has  investigated  the 
question.  It  was  an  act  of  usurpation  for  which 
both  the  President  and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
should  have  been  impeached.  This  would  likely 
have  resulted,  but  they  were  protected  by  the  in- 
fluence of  the  gold  oligarchy  in  both  parties.  The 
beneficiaries  of  the  crime  protected  their  agents. 

A  cursory  glance  will  show  these  bonds  issued 
under  the  Act  of  January  14.,  1875,  providing  for 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and  authoriz- 
ing the  secretary  of  the  treasury  to  issue  bonds  and 
buy  gold  and  silver  for  that  purpose,  had  fulfilled 
its  mission  and  become  obsolete. 

Specie  payment  had  been  an  accomplished  fact 
for  about  fifteen  years,  and  the  law  had  consum- 
mated the  specific  purpose  for  which  it  was  cre- 
ated^ thereupon  its  functions,  power  and  authority 
ceased. 

It  is  also  not  so  clear  but  that  it  had  been  re- 
pealed by  other  legislation  pertaining  to  the  sub- 
ject. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


83 


But  be  both  of  these  as  they  may,  there  is  an- 
other point  which  is,  whether  if  in  force,  this  law 
conferred  the  authority  to  issue  bonds  when  the 
treasury  contained  about  $500,000,000  of  silver,  a 
sufficient  amount  of  which  was  placed  there  by  law 
for  the  specific  purpose  of  paying  the  1136,000,000 
treasury  notes  which  were  being  redeemed. 

SILVER  COINAGE  PROVIDED  BY  THE  SHERMAN  BILL. 

Here  is  what  the  law  says.  The  Act  of  July 
14,  1890,  known  as  the  Sherman  Act,  section  3: 

^  'Section  3.  That  the  secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury shall  each  month  coin  2,000,000  ounces  of 
the  silver  bullion  purchased  under  the  provisions 
of  this  Act,  into  standard  silver  dollars  until  the 
istday  of  July,  1891,  and  after  that  time  he  shall 
coin  of  the  silver  btillion  purchased  uncler  the  pro- 
visions of  this  Act  as  much  as  may  be  necessary  to 
provide  for  the  redemption  of  the  treasury  notes 
herein  provided  for,  and  any  gain  or  seignorage 
arising  from  such  coinage  shall  be  accounted  for 
and  paid  into  the  treasury." 

The  unconditional  repeal  Act  of  November  i, 
1893,  simply  repealed  the  provisions  of  the  law  au- 
thorizing the  purchase  of  silver  bullion  and  the 
issue  of  treasury  notes  in  its  payment.    It  did  not 


84  MAN  AND  MAMMON, 

repeal  any  other  part  of  the  law  of  July  14,  1890, 
but  left  it  in  full  force  and  effect.  Here  is  a  direct 
requirement  of  law  that  the  $136,000,000  of  treas- 
ury certificates  should  be  paid  by  the  coinage  of 
the  silver  then  in  the  treasury,  for  whose  purchase 
they  had  been  issued,  which,  with  the  $53^000, 000  of 
seignorage,  amount  to  $189,000,000.  This  was 
more  than  sufficient  to  pay  any  bond  issue  that  has 
been  made  and  redeem  all  treasury  notes  and 
greenbacks  offered  for  redemption. 

It  does  not  require  a  lawyer  to  understand 
that  where  the  money  was  already  provided  and  in 
the  vaults  of  the  treasury  specially  to  pay  these 
very  certificates  and  obligations,  and  specifically 
directed  to  be  coined  and  used  for  that  purpose, 
that  neither  the  president  or  secretary  could,  under 
such  circumstances,  issue  bonds  and  buy  gold  to 
redeem  these  same  obligations. 

This  would  be  absurd.  The  law  of  January 
14,  1875,  could  have  no  application  or  authority  in 
such  a  case  even  if  still  in  force. 

It  may  be  said  in  extenuation  that  this  $189,- 
000,000  of  silver  was  not  all  coined.  That  is  no 
excuse,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  to  have  coined  it,  and  he  should  have  been 
dismissed  from  office  for  misfeasance  for  not  coin- 
ing it.     But  this  even  is  no  excuse,  the  treasurer 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  85 

had  about  1300,000,000  of  coined  silver  dollars  in 
the  treasury  which  he  could  have  put  in  the  place 
of  bullion  until  he  could  coin  it. 

But  further  discussion  of  this  question  is  use- 
less, for  while  there  is  no  legal  obligation  there  is 
a  moral  obligation  to  those  who  trusted  the  high 
dignitaries  of  a  great  nation  not  believing  them 
capable  of  such  gross  malfeasance  in  office.  But 
it  would  make  an  indignant  patriot's  hair  stand  on 
end  with  horror  at  the  reckless  violation  of  every 
law  for  the  protection  of  silver  by  those  who  are 
its  sworn  executors,  and  the  obsequious  obeisence 
to  the  gold  oligarchy  as  they  '^crook  the  pregnant 
hinges  of  the  knee  that  thrift  may  follow  fawning.'' 
Oh!  that  they  had  possessed  the  courage  and  pa- 
triotism of  Andrew  Jackson  who,  under  like  cir- 
cumstances, defied  the  money  power  and  protected 
the  people,  who  said,  ''Mr.  Biddle,  you  have  too 
much  power,  it  is  dangerous  to  a  free  country.  " 
Or,  like  Incorruptable  Daniel  Manning  when,  under 
like  circumstances  the  Shylock  money  changers 
came,  asked  "What  is  the  contract,  coin?  Then 
you  can  have  half  silver  and  half  gold,  or  if  that  is 
not  satisfactory,  you  can  have  all  silver.  The 
right  of  option  is  with  the  government." 

Had  our  once  honored  chief  thus  spoken  the 
gold  jugglers  would  have  returned  to  their  masters 


88 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


and  patriotism  would  not  have  hid  her  face  for 
shame. 

The  baffled  money  schemers  might  have 
sulked  for  a  time  and  put  a  small  premium  on  gold, 
but  that  occurred  notwitl>standing,  for  in  order  to 
hurry  the  subservient  trucklers  at  the  head  of  the 
government  in  their  several  issues  of  bonds  they 
boosted  gold  to  a  premium  of  one  or  two  per  cent 
in  New  York,  just  previous  to  one  or  two  bond 
sales. 

CHARLES  Foster's  order  the  only  authority  to 

PAY  GOLD. 

But  where  did  they  get  authority  to  pay  gold 
on  these  obligations  when  the  law  expressly  pro- 
vided for  their  payment  in  silver,  and  the  silver 
was  ready  in  the  treasury  to  redeem  them.  There 
was  not  and  is  not  a  law  on  any  statute  book  or  an 
iota  of  authority  anywhere  for  this  damnable  usur- 
pation. 

The  following  order  by  telegraph  from  Charles 
Foster,  secretary  of  the  treasury  under  Harrison, 
sent  on  October  14,  1891,  is  the  only  semblance  or 
pretence  of  authority  for  all  this  gold  paying  usur- 
pation: 

"October  14,  1891. 
Phineas  Pierce,  22  Summer  Street,  Boston,  Mass.: 

"Assistant  Treasurer  Kennerd  has  been  instructed  to  redeem 
treaeury  notes  in  gold."  Chas.  Foster,  Secretary. 

Charge  Department."  % 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  89 

This  was  the  opening  of  Pandora's  box,  the 
high  tide  and  broad  sweep  of  the  plagues  of 
Egypt  let  loose  on  a  long  suffering  people.  What 
right  had  Charles  Foster,  secretary,  to  set  aside 
the  laws  of  Congress  and  legislate  for  this' nation? 
What  right  had  his  successor  to  follow^  in  his  foot- 
steps and  confirm  such  high-handed  usurpation  ? 
It  was  at  the  dictation  of  the  gold  power.  The 
first  did  it  freely  without  reason  or  excuse.  The 
second  was  dazed  by  the  insolence  of  entrenched 
financial  thuggery.  And  thus  it  has  continued  the 
most  unblushing,  dastardly  crime  in  all  our  history. 
Without  an  apology  or  ^'by  your  leave,"'  it  has 
beat  down  all  the  bulwarks  of  legislation  and  free- 
dom, and  trampled  on  the  sacred  rights  of  the  con- 
stitution and  the  people.  Are  our  liberties  safe 
from  such  an  unscrupulous  power? 

All  these  bonds  have  been  issued  and  the  gold 
redemption  has  been  going  on  in  violation  of  the 
Act  of  July  14,  1890,  still  in  force  on  the  statute 
books,  which  says  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
^^shall  coin  of  the  silver  htdlion  purchased  under  the 
provisions  of  this  act,  as  much  as  may  be  neces- 
sary to  provide  for  the  redemption  of  the  treasury 
notes  herein  provided  for.'' 

Observe  the  language  of  the  law  ''shall co  171 
of  the  silver  bullion  as  much  as  may  be  necessary 


90  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

to  provide  for  the  redemption  of  the  treasury 
notes.  "  Could  anything  be  plainer?  And  this  is 
still  in  force  and  is  still  ignored,  violated  and 
trampled  upon  at  the  dictation  of  the  gold  power. 
With  this  law  in  force,  and  ample  silver  outside  of 
the  silver  held  to  redeem  the  silver  certificates  to 
pay  any  three  issues  of  the  bonds,  and  redeem 
more  than  half  ot  all  the  outstanding  greenbacks 
and  certificates,  in  violation  of  law  and  in  the  face 
of  Its  express  commands,  the  $262,000,000  of  bonds 
were  issued.  For  what?  In  a  supposed  emer- 
gency to  prevent  gold  going  to  a  premium. 

Gold  had  gone  to  a  premium  many  times  be- 
fore, here  and  in  all  countries.  It  was  never  be- 
fore considered  such  a  public  calamity  as  to  justify 
the  violation  of  all  law  to  prevent  it.  From  i860 
to  1872  it  was  at  a  high  premium  and  yet  we  had 
most  prosperous  times  during  that  period.  Be- 
sides was  not  1262,000,000,  aggregating  principal 
and  interest  about  $550,000,000,  a  high  premium 
for  the  nation  to  pay  for  gold  to  hand  over  to 
others  without  any  obligation  so  to  do?  Remem- 
ber the  redemption  of  greenbacks  and  treasury 
notes  were  clearly  provided  for  and  the  funds  in 
the  treasury  for  that  purpose  were  ample.  If  this 
had  not  been  the  case,  still  there  was  no  law  or 
justification  for  such  usurpation  'of  power  as  was 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  91 

never  before  known  in  our  history.  The  prospect 
of  gold  going  to  a  premium  was  no  excuse.  Any 
individual  or  combine  may  put  gold  to  a  premium 
any  day  by  offering  a  bonus  for  it,  and  no  govern- 
ment can  prevent  it. 

It  is  the  right  of  any  citizen  to  give  what  he 
pleases  for  what  he  wants,  and  gold  is  no  excep- 
tion; and  no  government  has  a  right  to  prevent  it, 
or  could  do  so  with  a  standing  army,  only  as  it  may 
be  done  by  law  for  the  prevention  of  usury. 

It  may  be  that  in  time  that  quaint  old  relic  of 
financial  barbarism  maintained  in  deference  to  an- 
tiquity, known  as  the  redemption  farce  or  delusion, 
will  pass  into  a  state  of  "inocuous  desuetude.'' 

It  is  a  sort  of  fiction  of  law  that  turns  the  pyra- 
mid of  our  finances  on  its  apex  to  see  it  tumble 
over  every  time  there  is  a  scramble.  This  farce 
comedy  is  carried  on  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  mass 
of  its  citizens,  but  to  tickle  the  greedy  palm  of  the 
money  changing  Jews  and  brokers,  who  constitute 
the  financial  pests  of  all  nations. 

The  good  citizen  feels  that  his  money  has  been 
redeemed  every  time  he  pays  a  debt  or  buys  some- 
thing with  it,  and  that  it  has  fully  accomplished  its 
monetary  functions. 

A  nation  with  165,037,000, ooo  worth  of  prop- 
erty as  security  for  its  obligations  ought  to  be  con- 


92  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

sidered  better  security  than  any  promised  system 
of  redemption,  for  it  has  twenty  times  the  security 
of  all  the  gold  in  the  world  if  it  was  bought  and 
piled  up  in  the  treasury. 

Yet  for  the  privilege  of  this  absurdity  we  have 
paid  almost  three  billion  dollars  in  interest  on 
bonds  to  get  to  specie  payment  with  untold  mil- 
lions of  loss  and  injury  in  other  ways.  And  still 
the  lives,  property  and  happiness  of  a  great  people 
are  subservient  to  this  Molock  oi  gold — this  jug- 
gernaut of  financial  fanaticism. 

And  still  we  hear  the  senseless  demigogic  cry 
of  ^'sound  money"  and  '^sound  money  men."  It 
may  be  that  such  men  are  like  barrels,  the  empti- 
est make  the  most  sound.  But  the  gold  men  have 
the  most  appalling  disregard  for  law  known  in  the 
history  of  this  continent.  For  example,  where  is 
the  legal  authority  for  locking  up  $100,000,000  of 
gold  in  the  treasury  of  the  United  States?  No 
wonder  gold  is  scarce.  A  dangerous  and  costly 
piece  of  folly,  on  a  par  with  the  rest  of  its  lawless- 
ness. It  is  a  large  bait  for  big  fish,  and  for  the 
gold  sharks  to  prey  on  and  laugh  at  our  silliness 
and  rash  folly.  No  other  nation  has  been  so  ab- 
surd and  ridiculous  as  to  furnish  gold  to  all  the 
world  on  demand  by  an  endless  chain  of  absurd 
currency,  and  give  no  protection  to  their  own  treas- 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


93 


ury  and  people.  It  makes  One  wonder  if  the  fool- 
killer  will  ever  get  through  with  the  slaughter  of 
the  gold  cranks. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  SINGLE  STANDARD    IS    A   DEFECTIVE  FINANCIAL 

SYSTEM. 

Our  currency  should  be  of  uniform  value.  It 
should  be  abundant  and  elastic,  and  no  part  of  it 
a  menace  to  the  government. 

At  the  present  time  our  money  is  not  uniform 
in  value,  it  is  not  sufficiently  abundant,  it  is  not 
elastic,  and  a  part  of  it  is  a  menace  to  the  govern- 
ment. 

There  is  no  disputing  these  propositions. 
They  are  admitted  by  all  parties,  and  no  middle 
ground  can  be  occupied  on  this  important  question 
of  currency  that  will  result  in  prosperity  to  the 
people. 

The  object  of  money  is  to  facilitate  trade,  to 
lubricate  the  wheels  of  commerce  and  bring  the 
products  of  labor  and  the  comforts  and  necessities 
of  life  to  every  man^s  door.    The  primitive  custom 


94  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

was  for  an  individual  to  exchange  the  surplus  pro- 
ducts of  his  labor  for  the  products  that  he  needed 
of  another  man's  labor. 

Money  is  the  substitute  for  products.  It  is  to 
facilitate  barter^  and  is  the  world's  adopted  medium 
of  exchange.  It  must  have  a  unit  of  value.  This 
unit  might  properly  be  represented  in  the  great 
staples  of  universal  consumption — wheat,  corn, 
rice,  sugar,  cotton  and  manufactured  articles — but 
the  objection  to  these  and  similar  products  is  their 
perishability  and  great  bulk,  while  their  substitute, 
the  medium  of  exchange,  should  be  as  nearly  im- 
perishable as  possible  and  the  least  unwieldly. 

The  world  has  selected  gold  and  silver  as  com- 
ing nearest  to  these  requirements.  It  is  better  to 
have  two  commodities  than  one.  Three  or  more 
would  be  still  better,  as  supply  and  demand  are  more 
accurately  represented  in  two  or  more  than  one. 
Bimetalists  favor  the  free,  unlimited  use  of  both 
gold  and  silver  as  standard  money. 

Some  object  to  silver  as  bulky  and  inconvenient 
for  use  in  large  quantity. 

Others  object  to  gold  as  currency  because  it  is 
also  bulky  and  difficult  to  keep  in  circulation.  In 
good  times  it  lies  uncalled  for  in  bank  vaults,  in 
hard  times  it  is  hid  away  and  locked  up.  In  either 
case  it  is  of  little  use  as  currency.    Another  very 


MAf^  AND  MAMMON.  95 

great  objection  to  gold  as  currency  is  that  it  largely 
diminishes  in  value  by  wear  from  much  handling. 
In  large  transactions  the  deficiency  in  weight  must 
be  made  good.  It  is  estimated  that  if  our  present 
stock  of  gold  was  all  in  circulation  in  coin,  the  loss 
from  abrasion  would  be  more  than  $2,000,000  per 
year. 

Gold  coin  will  not  circulate  in  large  quantities. 
Few  people  will  carry  it  in  their  pockets,  and  fewer 
still  will  use  it  in  their  ordinary  daily  purchases. 
They  prefer  s  Iver  for  small  purchases,  and  paper 
money  for  larger  transactions.  So  universal  is  the 
custom  that  no  one  expects  to  use  gold  or  see  it 
used  as  currency  in  ordinary  daily  transactions. 

Gold  is  not  needed  as  currency,  is  not  a  special 
currency,  and  is  not  generally  used  as  currency  in 
this  or  any  other  country  except  England,  and 
there  only  among  the  rich  and  well-to-do. 

So  true  is  this  in  this  country  that  the  United 
States,  for  convenience,  has  issued  gold  coin  cer- 
tificates. Banks  also  issue  gold  coin  certificates. 
And  thus  gold  seems,  by  universal  custom  and  con- 
sent, to  be  regarded  as  a  metallic  reserve — a  me- 
tallic basis  for  currency — or  large  metal  wealth  in 
small  bulk  for  transfer  or  conversion  into  other 
forms  of  wealth.  This  is  plain  from  the  banks  hold- 
ing $184,000,000  reserve  in  gold,  and  the  govern- 


96  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

ment  holding  $100,000,000.  These  two  items  above 
show  almost  two-thirds  the  gold  locked  up  in  two 
places.  This  being  the  case,  why  should  the  gold 
advocates  distress  the  country  by  their  great  noise 
and  ''hue  and  cry'^  about  the  restoration  of  silver 
driving  gold  out  of  circulation? 

And  where  is  the  loss  to  the  country?  We 
only  increase  the  circulation  and  use  of  silver  by  bi- 
metalism  without  impairing  or  affecting  the  pres- 
ent use  of  gold.  The  country  is  then  not  only  un- 
injured financially,  but  is  improved  and  made  richer 
and  more  prosperous  in  proportion  to  the  additional 
use  of  silver. 

And  as  we  are  large  silver  producers — the 
largest  in  the  world — we  should  utilize  and  protect 
this  natural  wealth  to  enrich  our  people  and  nation. 
All  other  nations  hav^e  done  so.  For  example, 
Spain,  when  she  virtually  owned  all  the  silver  mines 
-  of  America  and  the  world,  put  the  ratio  between 
gold  and  silver  at  10^  to  i,  and  upheld  and  sus- 
tained her  great  silver  product.  Rome  did  the 
same  when  she  ruled  the  world  and  owned  all  the 
known  silver  mines.  She  fixed  the  ratio  between 
gold  and  silver  at  8.93  to  i.  This  was  when  there 
was  twice  as  much  silver  as  gold  in  the  world. 
This  is  a  matter  of  history,  and  shows  how  other 
nations  protected  their  own  interest.  And  the  re- 
sult was  that  during  the  time  these  silver  mines 


MAN  AND  MAMMON,  *  97 

were  thus  protected  and  worked,  it  was  the  period 
of  their  greatest  growth  and  prosperity.  And  it  is 
a  fact  that  the  increased  production  of  silver  has 
marked  the  high  tide  in  the  prosperity  of  every 
nation  in  the  history  of  the  world,  our  ~own  in- 
cluded. 

It  is  our  duty  to  use  all  the  products  of  nature 
and  labor  at  our  command  to  increase  the  pros- 
perity and  happiness  of  our  people. 

If  the  restoration  of  silver  will  increase  its 
value  and  usefulness  as  money,  and  prevent  the 
struggle  for  gold,  stop  the  present  stagnation  in 
business  and  increase  the  wealth  of  our  nation, 
why  should  any  citizen  be  deterred  from  favoring 
its  restoration  by  reason  of  the  alleged  claim  that 
it  would  drive  gold  out  of  circulation,  when  the 
fact  is  gold  is  already  largely  out  of  circulation, 
and  never  was  in  general  circulation? 

If  retaining  the  present  gold  standard  will 
force  the  necessity  of  drawing  in,  and  redeeming 
the  $500,000,000  greenbacks  and  treasury  notes, 
which  all  gold  standard  men  claim,  how  much  bet- 
ter off  would  we  be  to  have,  say,  $500^000,000  in 
gold  in  supposed  circulation,  or  have  the  $500^000,- 
000  greenbacks  and  treasury  notes  taken  out  of 
circulation  and  paid  off  by  bonds  costing  us  $20,- 
000,0000  a  year  interest  for  an  indefinite  period? 


98  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

This  is  the  real  question  to  be  considered  by 
the  gold  advocates,  the  free  silver  men  have  long 
since  made  up  their  minds  that  free  silver  is  not 
only  preferable  but  the  only  solution  of  our  chaotic 
financial  condition. 

What  surprises  any  thoughtful  patriotic  man 
is  the  inconsistency  of  the  gold  advocates. 

They  say  to  restore  silver  will  drive  the  gold 
out  of  circulation,  and  this  loss  in  circulation  they 
say  will  bring  distress  and  bankruptcy,  but  at  the 
same  time  they  admit  that  in  order  to  retain  their  pet 
gold  in  circulation,  or  supposed  circulation,  they 
must  cut  down  the  circulation  of  more  useful  money 
fully  as  much  as  the  whole  amount  of  gold  in  the 
couiitry. 

Now,  where  is  their  consistency?  They  ob- 
ject to  cutting  down  the  supposed  circulation  of 
gold,  because  it  will  distress  the  country,  and  im- 
mediately advocate  a  greater  reduction,  still  more 
distressing,  in  order  to  retain  the  gold,  and  their 
unpatriotic  selfishness  would  force  the  government 
to  pay  $20,000,000  interest  yearly  to  accomplish 
this  reduction  of  currency  with  all  its  disastrous 
consequences  to  business. 

Their  idolatry  of  gold  is  amazing.  To  keep  a 
few  millions  in  supposed  circulation,  they  would 
destroy  one-half  the  currency  of  the  nation,  bring 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  99 

ruin  and  distress,  which  they  admit  as  a  result, 
and  pay  a  bonus  of  |20, 000,000  per  annum  for  the 
privilege  of  bringing  such  wreck  and  ruin. 

Marvelous  idolators,  these  millionaire  gold 
bugs  ! 

No  wonder  so  many  of  them  belong  to  that 
nation  who  were  the  original  worshipers  of  the 
golden  calf. 

The  money  changers  whom  Christ  scourged 
from  the  temple  with  his  whip  of  cords  were  gems 
of  perfection  by  the  side  of  the  present  worshipers 
of  gold. 

They  advocate  the  redemption  ofthe|500, - 
000,000  of  greenbacks  and  treasury  notes,  when 
the  people  are  impoverished  for  money,  and  they 
know  it  is  deliberate  financial  murder. 

They  seem  to  regard  the  #20,000,000  of  an- 
nual interest  as  a  mere  bagatelle  so  long  as  it  is  in 
their  interest.  They  admit  that  it  is  but  the  begin- 
ning of  the  endless  chain  that  will  include  all  our 
billion  of  currency,  with  $40,000,000  annual  inter- 
est. But  what  of  this — all — everything  must  be 
immolated  on  this  altar  of  gold,  and  be  crushed  by 
this  juggernaut  of  gold  lunacy. 

Tell  them  they  are  bankrupting  the  country, 
and  they  answer:    ''You  are  a  repudiationist. 
Tell  them  they  are  crushing  the  energies  of  the 


TOO  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

nation  and  perpetuating  a  national  debt  for  a  name 
— for  a  hollow  mockery  to  plague  this  and  future 
generations,  they  cry^  ' 'Anarchist!  Populist !  Silver 
craze/'  and  a  jargon  about  "sound"  money,  "hon- 
est'' money.  A  man  so  heartless  and  cold-blooded 
would  almost  murder  his  grandmother  and  convert 
her  bones  into  toothpicks.  Then  they  wind  up 
with  a  shriek,  charging  silver  agitation  as  the  cause 
-of  all  our  troubles. 

AGITATION  HURTFUL  TO  THE  GOLD  STANDARD 
BECAUSE  A  WEAK  SYSTEM. 

If  agitation  is  hurtful  to  the  gold  standard,  it 
shows  a  very  weak  and  inefficient  financial  system. 
If  it  cannot  stand  discussion,  then  it  is  doomed. 
It  is  by  discussion  that  men  reason  together  and 
ascertain  the  truth,  and  it  is  a  fact  the  single  gold 
standard  will  not  bear  investigation.  It  is  unfair, 
unjust  and  dangerous.  It  is  like  Ephraim,  '  'a  cake 
not  turned."  Agitation  for  more  money  ought 
to  make  times  better.  Then,  under  the  gold 
standard,  the  more  currency  you  have  the  more 
likely  the  inverted  financial  pyramid  will  topple 
over. 

Gold  is  the  most  cowardly  money  on  earth. 
This  is  proven  by  history,  for  when  Peru  had  no 
law  for  its  protection,  it  passed  dollar  for  dollar 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  loi 

with  silver,  and  because  it  was  abundant  Pizaro 
and  his  men  paid  $350  in  gold  for  a  pair  of  shoes, 
$445  for  a  bottle  of  wine,  and  $29,000  for  a  horse. 
This  shows  that  gold,  when  abundant  and  unpro- 
tected by  law,  may  depreciate  like  greenbacks  or 
continental  money. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

WHY  WE  SHOULD  RETAIN  THE  RATIO  OF  1 6  TO  I. 

All  parties  agree  that  the  United  States  should 
restore  bimetalism,  or  the  free,  unlimited  coinage 
of  gold  and  silver.  But  there  is  a  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  two  points.  These  are  the  fixing 
of  ratio,  and  the  question  of  waiting  for  the  aid  or 
consent  of  other  nations. 

We  believe  the  present  ratio  of  i6  to  i  should 
be  retained  as  the  just  and  proper  ratio,  for  the  fol- 
lowing reasons: 

First.  Because  it  is  the  present  ratio,  and  the 
highest  in  the  world  in  ancient  or  modern  times, 
and  because  it  has  maintained  its  par  value  with 
gold  at  this  ratio  or  less  for  more  than  two  thous- 
and years,  and  as  far  back  as  we  have  any  historic 


102 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


record,  and  during  a  large  part  of  this  time  it  com- 
manded a  premium  over  gold  at  that  ratio.  This 
was  when  it  had  something  like  a  fair  chance  with 
gold,  and  before  its  enemies  had  conspired  against 
and  partially  destroyed  it  by  unfavorable  legisla- 
tion. 

Second.  Because  to  change  the  ratio  would 
require  the  re-coinage  of  all  the  silver  money  in  the 
United  States,  which  would  cause  great  expense 
and  inconvenience. 

Third.  Because  it  was  the  unit  of  value  and 
the  standard  money  of  the  contract  at  the  time  our 
bonds  were  issued,  and  the  specific  money  required 
for  their  payment. 

To  change  the  ratio  now  would  be  to  change 
the  contract  for  the  payment  of  almost  a  billion 
and  a  quarter  dollars  indebtedness  of  our  nation, 
and  untold  millions  of  indebtedness  of  our  people. 

If  we  increased  the  ratio  it  would  be  an  unjust 
burden  to  our  nation  and  people  for  the  unjust  ben- 
efit of  the  bondholders  and  money  loaners.  We 
cannot  decrease  the  ratio,  for  that  would  be  unjust 
to  the  bondholders,  and  they  could  justly  cry  un- 
fairness and  dishonor.  So  there  is  no  honest  or 
just  way  in  which  the  ratio  can  be  changed.  This 
ought  to  be  a  sufficient  answer. 

Fourth.  There  is  the  further  reason  that  the 
nation  has  given  legislative  force  and  construction, 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  103 

and  specific  provisions  and  authority  for  the  pay- 
ment of  said  bonds  in  the  present  silver  dollar  of 
41 2  grains  of  standard  silver,  by  the  Stanley 
Mathews'  concurrent  resolution  of  June  25  and  28, 
1878,  before  referred  to,  which  says:  *'A11  the 
bonds  of  the  United  States  issued,  or  authorized  to 
be  issued,  under  the  said  act  of  Congress  hereto- 
fore recited^  are  payable,  principle  and  interest^  at 
the  option  of  the  government  of  the  United  States 
in  silver  dollars  of  the  coinage  of  the  United  States, 
containing  412^  grains  each  or  standard  silver." 
So  to  change  this  ratio  would  be  to  be  disregard, 
trample  on  and  overturn  our  whole  system  of  laws 
and  contracts  for  over  thirty  years. 

As  the  ratio  is  thus  fixed  by  laws  and  contracts 
of  long  standing,  this  ratio  is  the  only  just,  equita- 
table  and  legal  ratio  that  is  or  can  be  established. 

Therefore  the  man  who  is  not  for  the  ratio  of 
16  to  I  is  for  no  ratio,  and  is  not  for  silver  at  all. 
He  is  both  unreasonable  and  unjust,  and  a  finan- 
cial anarchist. 

16  TO  I  THE  ONLY  JUST  AND  LEGAL  RATIO. 

Gold  advocates  see  injustice  in  this  position ;  be- 
cause, as  they  claim,  the  commercial  ratio  between 
gold  and  silver  is  30  to  i.  Suppose  that  it  is  true 
that  silver  is  only  worth  half  what  it  was,  does  that 


104  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

change  the  matter?  Did  the  government  agree  to 
keep  silver  at  any  particular  market  or  bullion 
price? 

Suppose  you  had  bought  wheat  or  cotton  from 
the  government,  and  it  had  agreed  to  pay  you 
looo  bushels  of  corn  at  some  specific  time  in  the 
future?  Suppose  when  the  time  came  for  payment 
the  corn  was  worth  only  half  what  it  was  when 
contracted  for?  Would  you  expect,  or  demand,  of 
the  government  to  raise  the  price  of  corn  for  your 
special  benefit?  No  one  guarantees  the  non- 
shrinkage  of  any  kind  of  property  in  the  future  but 
each  one  takes  his  chances.  Everything  else  is 
childish. 

But  the  position  taken  by  the  gold  men  that 
the  commercial  value  of  silver  has  fallen,  I  deny. 
The  commercial  value  of  silver  is  what  it  will  buy 
of  the  articles  of  commerce.  What  they  mean  by 
its  commercial  value  is  its  bullion  value  as  compar- 
ed with  gold.  That  is  not  its  commercial  value; 
that  is  its  purchasing  power  of  gold.  As  gold  is 
only  one  of  the  forty-four  articles  of  commerce 
that  is  not  a  test  of  its  commercial  value.  If  it 
will  buy  as  much  of  the  forty-four  articles  of  com- 
merce as  it  would  before  demonetized,then  its  com- 
mercial value  has  not  fallen. 

By  this  test,  which  is  the  only  true  one,  we 
find  the  bullion  in  a  silver  dollar  melted  down  will 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  105 

buy  as  much  of  any  or  all  of  the  articles  of  com- 
merce as  it  would  when  the  bonds  were  issued, 
when  demonetized,  or  that  it  ever  would.  A  table 
is  appended,  which  shows  the  fifty-three  cents  of 
bullion  in  a  dollar  will  buy  as  much  wheat,  corn, 
oats,  rye,  hay,  cotton  and  all  products  as  the  same 
amount  of  silver  bullion  when  the  bonds  were  is- 
sued. 

Take  a  few  commodities  for  example:  Wheat 
that  formerly  brought  ^i.oo  and  $1.25,  now  brings 
only  forty -five  cents  in  the  West.  Corn  that 
brought  forty  to  fifty  cents,  now  brings  fifteen  to 
twenty  cents.  Oats  and  hay  about  the  same  pro- 
portion, and  potatoes  that  brought  forty  to  sixty 
cents  now  only  bring' fifteen  to  twenty-five  cents. 
Cotton  that  brought  twenty  to  twenty- five  cents, 
now  bring  seven  to  ten  cents,  etc. 

This  ought  to  satisfy  any  man  that  while  gold 
has  gone  up,  the  commercial  value  of  silver,  or  its 
purchasing  power,  has  not  gone  down  and  has 
changed  but  little.  And  that  silver  has  measured, 
and  still  continues  to  measure,  the  value  the  of  prod- 
ucts of  labor  and  land  the  world  over. 

That  silver  and  not  gold  is  the  money  of  the 
world^  and  that  gold  is  the  standard,  not  of  com- 
merce, not  of  the  world's  products,  but  only  the 
standard  of  the  millionaire  bankers,  and  money 
loaners  of  Europe  and  America. 


io6 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


CHx^PTER  XVI. 

THE  EFFECT  OF  IMMEDIATE  BI-METALISM  BENEFICIAL. 

As  to  international  bi-metalism,  Mr.  Whitney, 
in  a  recent  letter  urging  the  Democratic  convention 
not  to  commit  itself  to  free  silver,  but  wait  for  other 
nations,  laid  great  stress  on  the  prospects  of  an  in- 
ternational agreement  in  the  near  future. 

Senator  Hoar  is  quoted  as  expressing,  after  a 
talk  in  England  with  Balfour,  and  in  Paris  with  M. 
Meline,  his  hope  of  bringing  about  international 
bimetalism,  if  the  Republicans  did  not  commit 
themselves  too  unreservedly  to  the  gold  standard. 

The  effect  of  independent  action  by  the  Uni- 
ted States  in  restoring  silver  has  been  recently  dis- 
cussed by  the  most  noteworthy  international  bi- 
metalists  of  Europe^  and  their  opinion  is  that  in- 
dependent free  coinage  of  silver  by  the  United 
States  would  be  beneficial. 

The  father  of  international  bi-metalism,  Cer- 
nuschi,  a  few  days  before  his  death  on  May  13th, 
in  the  Paris  Economiste,  wrote  as  follows: 

An  end  should  be  put  to  the  monetary  an- 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  107 

archy  in  which  the  world  has  been  writhing  since 
1873.  If  I  were  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
and  was  convinced  that  Europe,  by  reason  of  En- 
gland's attitude  is  fixedly  hostile  to  a  stable  mone- 
tary parity  between  gold  and  silver,  then  I  would 
cease  to  be  an  international  bi-metalist  and  go  over 
to  the  silver  men/^ 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  its  present  economic 
condition,  the  United  States  of  America,  that  great 
and  youthful  nation,  suffers  much  more  from  the 
merciless  conflict  that  has  been  in  progress  between 
gold  and  silver  since  1873,  than  England,  a  very 
wealthy  country,  creditor  of  the  rest  of  the  world, 
possessing  resources  of  every  kind^  and  enormous 
financial  reserves,  which  enables  her  to  endure 
with  comparative  ease  the  economic  competition  of 
those  nations  whose  monetary  standard  is  depricia- 
ted  in  regard  to  gold  like  the  countries  of  the 
far  East,  Mexico  and  the  Argentine  Republic, 

EUROPEAN  AUTHORITES  FAVOR  BI-METALISM. 

^'The  United  States  on  the  contrary  are  debt- 
ors to  Europe  for  a  portion  of  the  sums  they  have 
employed  in  the  development  of  their  industrial 
system,  and  must  necessarily  liquidate  their  debts 
abroad  by  realizing  upon  the  products  of  their  soil 
and  their  manufactures. 


io8 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


^  'Now  as  these  foreign  debts  are  on  the  one 
hand  contracted  in  gold,  and  as  the  American  pro- 
ducts in  Europe  have  to  reckon  with  the  depress- 
ing competition  of  similar  products  exported  by 
countries  having  a  silver  standard  or  paper  money, 
it  folloAvs  that  the  appreciation  of  gold  in  regard  to 
silver  that  has  taken  place  since  1873  has  had  a 
two-fold  result  for  the  United  States. 

''First.  It  has  diminished  by  half  the  value  in 
gold  of  all  the  national  products  which  are  subject 
to  the  said  competition. 

•'Second.  It  has  doubled  the  real  burden  of 
the  debts  contracted  abroad  in  gold,  since  double 
the  quantity  of  American  products  is  now  required 
to  discharge  the  annual  liabilities  arising  from  those 
debts. 

^ 'The  present  monetary  policy  of  the  United 
States  is  consequently  very  advantageous  to  the 
interests  of  England,  a  gold  monometallic  country, 
but  it  is  utterly  ruinous  as  regards  the  foreign  fin- 
ancial relations  of  the  United  States,  and  especially 
for  its  native  producers. 

"This  is  why,  inasmuch  as  England's  attitude 
prevents  the  realization  of  international  bimetalism, 
and  condemns  one-half  of  the  world  to  gold  mono- 
metalism,  and  the  other  to  silver  monometalism,  I 
would  not  hesitate,  were  I  a  citizen  of  the  United 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  109 

States  to  become — I.  Cernuschi,  the  father  of  inter- 
national bimetalism — as  I  am  everywhere  called — a 
silver  monometalist. " 

Thus  the  father  of  international  bi-metalism, 
only  a  short  time  before  his  death,  being  entirely 
disinterested,  advised  the  United  States  to  adopt 
free  silver  in  her  own  interest,  and  wait  no  longer. 
He  declared  if  he  were  a  citizen  of  this  country  he 
would  become  a  silver  monometalist.  He  further 
says:  ''The  free  coinage  of  silver  at  16  to  i  with- 
out the  concurrence  of  Europe  would  nevertheless 
be  a  step  in  the  direction  of  international  bi-metal- 
ism. For  the  productive  power  of  the  United 
States  would  receive  so  enormous  an  impulse, 
and  this  development  would  have  such  a  disastrous 
effect  upon  the  interests  of  England  and  the  other 
European  nations  now  governed  by  the  gold  stand- 
ard, that  it  may  be  confidentially  predicted  in  ad- 
vance that  the  course  of  events  would  force  the 
adoption  of  international  bi-metalism  as  the  only 
true  solution,  even  upon  those  who  to-day  deny 
the  possibility  and  efficacy  of  it." 

That  England  does  intend  to  prevent  bi-metal- 
ism here  is  the  testimony  of  M.  Des  Essars,  chief 
of  economics  in  the  Bank  of  France,  who  recently 
said:  ^ 'The  partisans  of  silver  affect  to  believe 
that  Europe  is  about  to  rally  to  the  support  of  free 


no  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

coinage.  This  is  a  delusion.  The  speech  of  M. 
Hicks-Beach  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  the  firm  deter- 
mination of  England  to  maintain  its  existing  mone- 
tary system. " 

MR.  Cleveland's  emissaries. 

But  there  are  those  who  claim  that  but  for  the 
obstinacy  of  Mr.  Cleveland  and  his  gold-enslaving 
administration,  we  would  have  had  international  bi- 
metalism  three  years  ago. 

The  B'nglish  financier,  Mr.  Moreton  Frewen, 
in  his  London  letter  of  June  17^  says: 

'T  affirm  with  strong  conviction  that  the  way 
would  have  been  prepared  during  the  past  three 
years  for  an  international  settlernent  of  this  great 
difficulty,  had  it  not  been  for  just  one  man — your 
president. 

*'Mr.  Cleveland  is  paying  the  penalty  for  the 
obstinate  determination  he  has  evinced  throughout 
to  thrust  your  country^  in  not  merely  a  gold  stand 
ard,  but  the  straightest  gold  monometalism. 

^ '  Those  of  us  who  have  been  ardent  workers 
here  for  international  bi-metalism,  have  found  our- 
selves at  all  points  crossed  and  defeated  by  Mr. 
Cleveland's  actions  and  Mr.  Cleveland's  emissaries. 
He  sent  Mr.  Atkinson  over  here  on  a  special  mis- 
sion to  try  and persicade  those  in  the  prese^it  cabinet ^ 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  iii 

such  men  as  Mr.  Chapin  and  Mr.  Balfour,  that 
they  were  crayiks ;  that  the  current  leg-al  tender  of 
the  two  metals  was  impracticable. 

Mr.  Balfour's  difficulties  within  Lord  Salis- 
bury's cabinet  were  in  any  case  very  great.  They 
were  made  infinitely  greater  by  the  ridicule  poured 
upon  currency  reform  by  Mr.  Ceveland,  Mr.  J. 
Sterling  Morton,  Mr.  Hoke  Smith  and  others. 
The  speeches  and  absurd  letters  of  these  gentle- 
men were  six  months  ago  to  be  found  in  many  of 
our  daily  papers. 

"  So  impossible  had  become  the  position  (and 
in  this  connection  I  know  of  what  I  am  writing)  of 
those  members  of  our  government  who  were 
pledged  to  currency  reform,  because  of  the  attitude 
of  the  government  at  Washington,  that  last  year 
we,  for  the  time,  gave  up  the  struggle. 

I  rejoice  then  in  the  revolt  of  the  democratic 
party,  and  I  venture  to  say  should  that  party  suc- 
ceed in  electing  a  free  silver  president  and  congress, 
before  Mr.  Cleveland  goes  out  of  the  White  House, 
an  international  agreement  will  have  been  secured. 

"  The  Rothschilds  here,  the  wealth  investors  in 
every  capitol^  could  not  afford  to  sit  still  and  see 
your  country  go  it  alone.  Europe  will  respond  to 
your  spirited  initiative.  If  the  United  States 
pledges  itself  to  immediate  free  coinage,  I  emphati- 


112  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

cally  believe  that  M.  Meline,  on  behalf  of  France 
will  offer  free  mintage.  We  here  are  pledged  to 
re-open  the  Indian  mints." 

Thus  another  great  European  bi-metalist  ad- 
vises us  to  proceed  to  immediate  bi-metalism,  and 
promises  France  and  other  countries  will  speedily 
follow.  He  also  distinctly  charges  the  defeat  of 
international  bi-metalism  to  Mr.  Cleveland,  and 
says  he  sent  Mr.  Atkinson  and  others  over  thereto 
persuade  Mr.  Balfour  and  Chapin  of  Salisbury's 
cabinet,  that  they  were  cranks,  because  they  fa- 
vored this  great  financial  reform  in  the  interest  of 
freedom  and  humanity.  Great  God!  could  big- 
gotted  tyranny  go  further?  Charles  I,  lost  his 
head  for  fewer  crimes  and  violations  of  law. 

President  E.  B.  Andrews,  of  Brown  Univer- 
sity, commenting  on  Carnuschi's  article,  says  in  his 
Boston  letter  of  June  22:  "The  vast  new  output 
of  gold  in  recent  years  as  compared  with  that  of 
silver,  impresses  me  that  the  free  coinage  by  us 
alone,  would  not  lead  to  the  displacement  of  our 
gold;  that  therefore  free  coinage  would  be  safe. 
If  it  is  safe  it  is  certainly  desirable.  I  therefore 
do  not   dogmatize  but    leave    that  to   the  gold 

men.  To  my  mind,  however,  the  overwhelming 
probability  is  that  gold  would  stay  with  us.  I 
have  noticed  of  late  no  serious  argument  to  show 
that  it  would  not. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  113 

This  is  the  opinion  of  a  learned  and  conserva- 
tive authority,  and  he  favors  immediate  free  silver, 
and  thinks  we  will  not  loose  our  ^old  thereby. 
And  that  the  vast  new  output  of  gold  in  recent 
years  as  compared  with  silver,  '^favorsfree  coinage 
by  us  alone,"  and  ''would  not  lead  to  displacement 
of  our  gold,"  and  free  coinage  would  be  safe. 

Much  more  testimony  of  like  import  from  the 
highest  authority  could  be  adduced  but  space  will 
not  permit,  The  whole  world  agrees  with  him 
that  if  free  silver  is  safe  it  is  certainly  desirable, 
and  the  best  authorities  say  it  is  sa'fe.  Then  why 
not  have  it  ?  Will  this  great  country  and  the  world 
allow  a  few  millionaires  to  destroy  its  peace  and 
prosperity  and  keep  them  in  financial  anarchy? 


114 


MAN  AND  MAMMON, 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

ANDREW  Jackson's   fight  with  the  united 

STATES  BANK. 

The  memorable  controversy  between  Andrew 
Jackson  and  the  United  States  Bank  constitute  an 
invaluable  lesson  to  American  citizens,  as  it  shows 
how  subtle  and  unscrupulous  are  the  methods  of  a 
money  aristocracy. 

It  shows  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  money 
power,  and  that  the  controlers  of  the  nation's  cur- 
rency and  credits  constitute  the  money  power. 
The  audacity  of  appropriating  the  use  of  such 
words  as  "honest"  to  a  dollar  of  a  200-cent  pur- 
chasing power,  and  honest  or  sound  money  men" 
to  those  who  are  compelling  the  government  and 
people  to  pay  debts  in  dollars  of  higher  standard 
value  than  was  promised,  shows  a  colossal  disre- 
gard of  both  honesty  and  truth. 

It  is  said  ''history  repeats  itself,"  and  this  is 
true  of  the  present  fight  between  the  people  and 
the  money  power;  it  is  the  repetition  of  the  conflict 
between  President  Jackson  and  the  banks.  Samuel 
J.  Tilden  said  ''the  history  of  every  nation  which 


bu; 

TO 

o_ 

o 

3  boi 

goe! 

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i-f 

OTQ 
•-» 

d 

CO 

• 

O 

n 

3 

d 

enbi 

ited 

o 

^. 

» 

5' 

r-r- 

o 

u> 

OW 

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an 

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^. 

ker 

5' 

pi 

w  B  B  P  o 
o  t3  a  M  a  E 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  117 

has  enjoyed  any  portion  of  freedom  is  a  record  of 
the  incessant  struggles  of  the  few  to  establish  do- 
minion over  the  many." 

Those  interested  in  money  seek  to  enhance 
the  purchasing  value  of  dollars  by  making  them 
scarce,  while  the  interests  of  producers  and  labor- 
ers are  best  served  by  having  dollars  more  plenti- 
ful so  that  their  products  and  labor  will  command 
a  better  price.  There  is  thus  a  continuous  con- 
flict of  interests  between  these  two  classes  in  every 
nation.  But  this  conflict  has  been  emphasized  by 
the  demonetization  in  this  country  which  has  given 
vast  advantage  to  the  monied  class  and  enriched 
them  at  the  expense  of  the  farmers^  producers  and 
laborers.  The  restoration  of  silver  is  the  only  way 
to  adjust  this  undue  advantage  and  restore  pros- 
perity to  all  classes. 

But  to  the  story  of  Andrew  Jackson's  fight 
with  the  money  power  led  by  Nicholas  Biddle,  the 
money  king  of  that  day. 

Sixty  years  ago  there  was  but  one  great  cor- 
poration in  the  United  States;  that  was  the  old 
United  States  Bank  with  thirty-five  million  dollars 
and  a  charter  that  expired  in  twenty  years. 

The  money  power  of  that  generation  was  con- 
centrated in  that  bank  and  its  branch  banks  all 
over  the  nation.     Banks  printed  their  own  money 


ii8 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


then  and  the  law  allowed  them  to  circulate  three 
dollars  in  paper  money  to  each  one  dollar  of  capi- 
tal, with  no  restraint  but  their  good  faith,  from  cir- 
culating one  hundred  dollars  to  one  of  capital. 
Nicholas  Biddle  was  president  of  the  bank  and  the 
head  of  the  money  power  of  that  day.    He  was 
not  only  a  banker,  but  he  was  a  scholar,  an  author, 
a  democrat  and  supported  Jackson  at  his  first  elec- 
tion.    He  lived  in  a  marble  palace  on  the  banks  of 
the  Delaware,  fifteen    miles   from  Philadelphia, 
where  he  dispensed  royal  hopitality  almost  equal  to 
the  kings  of  Europe.    Many  people  thought  him  a 
greater  man  than  Jackson^  and  people  came  fifty 
miles  when  he  passed  through  a  town  or  city  to  see 
*^the  man  that  crushed  Jackson."    Jackson  was 
not  crushed,  but  they  were  sure  he  would  be  with 
such  vast  money  power  against  him.    The  contest 
came  about  in  this  way:    Some  time  before  the 
bank  charter  expired  Biddle  called  upon  President 
Jackson  who  was  a  candidate  for  re-election.  To 
impress  him  with  his  great  power  he  told  him  that 
through  the  influence  of  his  banks  he  could  control 
the  election  of  any  state  in  the  Union. 

This  stirred  the  fearless  patriotism  in  Andrew 
Jackson,  and  with  suppressed  emotion  he  said, 
"Mr.  Biddle,  if  that  is  true,  and  I  think  it  is,  I  tell 
you  here  and  now,  that  if  you  can  control  the  elec- 
tion of  any  state  in  the  Union,  that  is  too  much 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  119 

power  for  one  man  to  have  in  a  free  country  in 
time  of  peace.  And  I  will  tell  you  further,  that  if 
you  get  a  new  charter  from  Congress  for  that  bank, 
by  the  eternal  I  will  veto  that  charter !"  Then  the 
fight  began  in  earnest,  and  the  great  money  king 
and  his  allies  set  to  work  to  defeat  the  re-election 
of  Jackson.  The  first  thing  they  did  was  to  buy 
up  all  the  great  Democratic  newspapers  from  Bos- 
ton to  New  Orleans.  They  even  bought  Jackson's 
home  organ,  the  Washington  Globe.  The  same 
course  pursued  at  present  by  the  gold  power  to- 
ward the  people  who  demand  the  constitutional 
restoration  of  silver. 

When  Jackson  saw  they  were  using  the  money 
of  the  government  to  buy  up  newspapers,  editors, 
etc.,  he  said  to  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  ''Mr. 
Duane^  I  don't  want  you  to  put  any  more  govern- 
ment money  in  that  bank.  It  will  blow  up.  The 
money  is  not  safe." 

Mr.  Duane  was  himself  a  banker  and  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  money  power,  and  he  said,  *4  can't 
obey  that  order. " 

Then  Jackson  dismissed  him  from  the  cabinet 
and  put  Roger  B.  Taney  in  his  place,  the  man  w^ho 
afterwards  became  chief  justice.  Webster,  Cal- 
houn and  Clay,  called  by  Benton  the  defender  of 
Jackson,   ''the  great  triumvirate,"  with  all  the 


I20  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

machinations  of  the  money  power  at  their  back, 
made  the  combined  assault  on  Jackson,  and  all  their 
^reat  subsidized  papers  hurled  their  thunderbolts 
of  denunciation,  abuse  and  misrepresentation. 

Like  their  more  recent  imitators,  they  got  up 
'  'honest''  Democratic  meetings,  from  one  of  which, 
in  Philadelphia,  they  sent  a  committee  of  three 
hundred  to  Washington  to  expostulate  with  Jack- 
son. One  of  them  so  far  forgot  himself  as  to  say 
that  if  Jackson  persisted  in  his  course  the  people 
would  rise  up  en  masse  and  come  to  Washington 
'to  expell  the  Goths  from  Rome.'  " 

Jackson  replied,  '*Do  you  come  here  to  threat- 
en me?  If  you  men  dare  to  put  any  of  your 
threats  into  execution,  by  the  great  eternal  I  will 
hang  you  as  high  as  Haman." 

Many  of  Jackson's  old  friends  left  him,  which 
was  duly  exploited  in  the  subsidized  press,  and  it 
looked  blue  for  ''Old  Hickory"  for  a  time.  But 
where  one  great  banker  left  him  four  or  five  farm- 
ers and  mechanics  took  their  place,  and  Jackson 
was  overwhelmingly  elected,  and  the  country  saved 
from  the  arrogance  of  the  money  power  for  a  third 
of  a  century. 

Nicholas  Biddle  and  his  power  is  past  and  for- 
gotten, his  banks  collapsed  like  egg-shells,  but  the 
name  of  Andrew  Jackson  sends  a  thrill  of  pride 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  121 

through  every  patriotic  heart.  And  the  contrast 
between  Jackson  and  our  present  chief  who  opened 
the  flood  g-ates  of  ruin  to  the  money  power  is  too 
sad  for  contemplation.  May  history  continue  to 
repeat  itself,  and  where  the  cause  of  bimetalism 
and  humanity  loses  one  banker,  may  it  gain  five  or 
ten  plain,  honest  citizens  to  take  their  place. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  EASTERN  AND  WESTERN  BANKER  ON  BI  METALISM . 

The  gold  advocates  admit  that  the  present  sin- 
gle Standard  has  brought  distress  and  dissatisfac- 
tion. Mark  Hanna  recently  said  ^'the  workingmen 
are  not  complaining  (which  is  untrue),  only  the 
farmer  and  debtor  class  are  dissatisfied." 

While  speaking  thus  contemptuously  of  this 
class,  he  forgets  they  constitute  more  than  one- 
half  our  population. 

He  also  forgets  that  they  have  endured  loss 
and  bankruptcy  many  years  on  account  of  this  sin- 
gle gold  standard,  whose  infamies  he  is  trying  to 
perpetuate. 

He  seems  to  think  with  many  others  that  only 


122  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

the  debtor  class  are  for  bi-metalism,  for  the  pur- 
pose, the  gold  men  say,  of  paying  their  debts  in 
what  they  term  a  fifty- cent  dollar. 

This  is  a  mistake.  That  reason  has  little  in- 
fluence with  the  great  patriotic  masses. 

I  will  illustrate  this  by  a  conversation  which 
took  place  between  an  eastern  and  western  banker 
but  a  short  time  ago.  An  eastern  banker  said  to  a 
western  banker,  who  was  visiting  him  in  New 
York  City,  and  who  had  announced  that  he  was  a 
free  silver  man . 

*'You  for  free  silver?    Are  you  in  debt?" 
''No,"  answered  the  western  banker. 
'•I  supposed  none  but  those  in  debt  were  for 
free  silver,"  said  the  eastern  banker. 

^ 'Since  you  put  it  that  way/"  replied  the  west- 
ern banker,  '''do  you  know  anything  on  earth  as 
much  in  debt  as  the  banks?  According  to  your  ar- 
gument they  should  all  be  for  free  silver." 

"Weil,  I  declare,  I  never  thought  of  that," 
answered  the  eastern  banker. 

"Well,  I  have,"  replied  the  western  banker; 
it  is  easy  of  explanation.  It  is  that  pure,  cussed 
selfishness  that  is  incident  to  human  nature.  We 
bankers  do  what  no  other  people  on  earth  do,  wc 
'  'live  off  of  the  interest  of  what  we  owe."  We  lend 
the  money  we  owe  our  depositors.    Now,  we  are 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  123 

often  influenced  by  the  selfish  desire  to  lend  our 
depositors  money  at  a  high  rate  of  interest,  and  in 
order  to  do  this  we  want  a  scarcity  of  money  and 
times  a  little  hard.  So  we  naturally  try  to  bring 
about  this  condition,  which  is  favorable  to  making 
money. 

INDEBTEDNESS  OF  THE  BANKS. 

"In  Other  words,  since  we  live  off  of  the  inter- 
est of  what  we  owe,  we  want  that  interest  as  high 
as  possible — and  thus  avarice  makes  robbers  of  us 
all,  or  nearly  all,  and  we  are  apt  to  think  others 
influenced  by  the  same  sordid  considerations." 

"Oh,  you  are  hard  on  us,''  said  the  eastern 
banker. 

''No,  I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  facts," 
he  said. 

*'Mr.  Carlisle  in  his  Chicago  speech  stated  the 
banks  were  in  debt  15,353,000,000.  This  is  two 
and  a  half  times  all  the  money  in  the  United  States 
— all  kinds  of  money,  which  can  only  be  repre- 
sented by  between  four  and  five  hundred  millions 
of  gold. 

"How  is  it  possible  to  pay  with  a  constantly 
decreasing  currency  and  only  a  handful  of  gold  in 
the  country? 

"While  we  are  quick  to  urge  the  government 


124  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

to  pay  gold  would  we  pay  it  to  our  customers  on  their 
deposits?  And  if  the  government  is  bound  to  pay 
the  gold  on  its  currency,  why  are  we  not  bound  to 
pay  on  our  national  bank  currency?  The  contract 
and  obligation  are  the  same. 

'^There  is  no  more  authority  in  law  for  any 
holder  of  a  greenback  or  treasury  certificate  to  de- 
mand gold  from  the  United  Sta  es  Treasury  than 
there  is  for  a  bank  depositor  to  demand  gold  on 
his  certificate  of  deposit,  or  on  a  national  bank 
note. 

"You  astonish  me,  can  that  be  possible?'* 
exclaimed  the  eastern  man. 

''That  is  not  only  true,"  he  continued,  '  *but 
every  dollar  paid  in  gold  by  the  government,  ex- 
cept a  few  gold  certificates,  is  contrary  to  the 
Acts  of  Congress,  authorizing  and  providing  for 
their  payment  in  silver.  All  the  obligations  of  the 
government  are  payable  just  like  those  of  a  bank 
or  individual  in  the  lawful  money^  coin  or  currency 
ol  the  nation — not  a  word  about  gold,  not  a  cin- 
tilla  of  authority  to  pay  gold.  Therefore  the  pre- 
sumption of  the  banks  and  brokers  in  demanding 
gold  is  colossal  nerve  and  overbearing  arrogance, 
and  the  gold  thuggery  that  would  force  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  to  comply  with  such  demands 
would  overthrow  constitutional  government  and 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  125 

destroy  the  liberties  of  the  nation.  If  the  gold 
power  is  so  strong  as  to  force  this  violation  of  law 
and  protect  the  high  dignitaries  who  betray  their 
trust,  then  is  our  whole  fabric  of  government  in  the 
throes  of  destruction,  and  the  money  power  that 
has  wrapped  its  arms  like  Samson  around  the  pil- 
lars of  our  national  temple,  like  Samson  will  be 
buried  in  its  ruins.  " 

"Why  you  alarm  me;  I  never  thought  it  was 
so  serious  as  that.  The  government  has  been  do- 
ing these  things,  and  I  thought  they  ought  to  keep 
it  up,  but  did  not  know  it  was  a  violation  of  law," 
said  the  eastern  banker  with  much  agitation. 

THE  MONEY  POWER  THE  MOST  OPEN  VIOLATERS  OF 

LAW . 

'  'Well, my  friend, it  is  the  most  serious  and  dan- 
gerous matter.  You  easterners  denounce  the  West 
and  bi-metalists  as  repudiationists  and  anarchists, 
and  yet  you  not  only  encourage  violation  of  law, 
but  demand  it,  and  protect  the  criminals  in  high 
places  who  violate  law  for  your  benefit.  Are  you 
not  the  real  anarchists?  It  is  a  fact  that  can  not  be 
disputed,  that  every  law  for  the  protection  of  sil- 
ver has  been  violated  in  the  interest  of  gold,  and 
the  Treasury  raided  contrary  to  law,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  gold  power.     Is  not  this  anarchy?  Take 


126 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


one  instance  out  of  many,  the  failure  and  refusal 
to  coin  the  silver  in  the  Treasury  to  redeem  the 
Treasury  certificates  of  $136^000,000. 

"This  silver  has  been  lying  for  years  in  the 
Treasury  uncoined,  with  the  law  in  force  requiring 
its  coinage  to  redeem  these  Treasury  notes,  and  the 
Treasury  paying  out  gold  and  issuing  bonds  con- 
trary to  law,  and  you  eastern  people  approving  it 
and  clamorous  for  every  violation  of  law  in  the  in- 
terest of  gold.     Oh,  shame!  where  is  thy  blush? 

'  Yet  you  are  the  gems  of  perfection  in  your 
complacent  egotism.  You  have  appropriated  all 
the  honesty  on  the  earth.  There  is  none  left  for 
the  rest  of  the  world.  In  fact^  there  is  hardly 
enough  to  go  around  among  you;  you  absorb  it  so 
naturally  like  you  do  gold.  Yet  you  have  violated 
more  law  and  defended  its  violation  in  your  inter- 
est, more  than  all  other  classes  in  all  the  world." 

Ah!  you  case-hardened  compound  of  selfish- 
ness! You  should  shake  the  gold  dust  from  your 
erring  feet,  and  moisten  it  with  the  tears  of  sorrow 
for  the  rich  benighted  people  of  the  east  whom  you 
have  wrongly  educated.'' 

This  almost' took  the  eastern  banker's  breath 
away,  but  he  replied  in  a  conciliatory  tone:  ''Oh! 
you  are  excited.    We  are  not  so  bad  as  that." 

' 'You  have  exasperated  the  country  beyond 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  127 

measure,  and  its  patriotic  indignation  is  at  fever 
heat. ^'  Continued  the  western  banker:  *'The  peo- 
ple have  been  patient  for  years,  and  petitioned  and 
entreated,  but  as  the  fearless  orator  of  Nebraska 
said  in  the  Chicago  conventionn:  ''We  will  en- 
treat no  longer;  we  defy  you."  This  is  the  shout 
of  battle,  this  is  the  bugle  call  to  the  charge  from 
the  leader  of  forty  million  of  people  who  will 
have  justice  for  humanity.'' 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  PEOrLE  WEST  OF  THE  ALLEGHANIES  TERRIBLY 
]N  EARNEST. 

"You  seem  terribly  in  earnest  and  put  your 
argument  on  a  high  plain,  "  responded  the  eastern 
banker. 

'  'The  people  west  of  the  Alleghanies  are  terri- 
bly in  earnest,  and  regard  this  struggle  for  bi-met- 
alism  more  than  a  mere  financial  question,"  he  con 
tinued,  ''it  is  the  cause  of  justice,  humanity, 
freedom  and  self  government,  against  the  thraldom 
and  slavery  of  the  money  power.     It  is  *'the  irre- 


128 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


pressible  conflict"  that  will  not  cease  till  the  peo- 
ple's wrongs  are  righted.  It  must  come,  and  may- 
come  quickly.  Prepare  for  it.  It  may  hurt  a  few, 
but  it  will  benefit  the  many;  and  secure  liberty  and 
prosperity  for  all  in  the  near  future." 

' 'Do  you  believe  it  will  be  a  blessing  to  the 
country?  We  have  been  taught  that  western  peo- 
ple were  anarchists  and  socialists,"  interrupted  the 
eastern  banker. 

"We  could  not  be  both,  for  they  are  directly 
opposites.  An  anarchist  believes  in  no  law  and 
all  freedom;  a  socialist  in  all  law  and  no  freedom. 
What  astounds  our  western  people  is  your  absurd 
assumptions  on  financial  questions. 

"You  look  wise,  but  most  any  farmer  in  Illi- 
nois, Kansas  or  Missouri  knows  more  about  finance . 
They  could  make  you  retreat  all  over  a  forty  acre 
wheat  field  on  any  proposition  you  could  put  up  on 
the  money  question.  You  have  been  wrongly  educa- 
ted. You  have  gone  to  Europe  too  often  to  know 
anything  about  this  country.  You  have  been 
taught  by  Morgan,  Lazarus,  Levy  &  Co.,  and 
they  know  how  to  make  fools  of  you, and  fleece  you 
and  the  country  out  of  millions. 

''Samuel  J.  Tilden  photographed  you  some 
years  ago  when  he  said:  *The  ri:h  concentrating 
property  by  monopolies  and  perpetuities^  have  es- 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  129 

tablished  an  aristocracy  more  potent  and  oppress- 
ive than  any  other  that  has  ever  existed. '  " 

The  eastern  banker  repHed  somewhat  nettled: 
^^You  overdraw  the  picture  and  are  too  extreme 
in  your  statements/'  ''Possibly, continued  the 
other,  '*but  see  your  position,  because  there  are 
large  amounts  of  money  locked  up  in  the  vaults, 
you  say  there  is  too  much  money,  when  it  is  only  a 
congestion  of  money — too  much  in  some  places 
and  none  at  all  in  others,  and  you  wonder  why  the 
bi-metalists  want  to  expand  the  currency.  Your 
obtuseness  will  not  permit  you  to  see  that  people 
under  the  present  system  prefer  to  convert  their 
wealth  into  money  and  let  it  lay  idle,  rather  than 
invest  it  in  commerce  on  a  declining  market,  where 
all  products  and  values  have  been  declming  since 

1873. 

Men  will  not  invest  when  there  is  no  profit, 
and  business  will  not  continue  when  it  soon  leads 
to  bankruptcy.  Men  will  not  own  land  or  property 
when  their  products  will  not  pay  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction. 

'  'Take  one  example  of  many^  the  official  report 
of  the  Illinois  State  Board  of  Agriculture  for  1889, 
exhibited  the  distressing  fact  that  "the  corn  crop 
of  that  state  for  that  year  actually  sold  for  ten 
millions  dollars  less  than  it  cost  to  produce  it. 


i.^o  MAN  AND  MAMMON.  ' 

Corn  and  potatoes  in  the  west  today  are  selling  at 
I o  cents  a  bushel  and  wheat  about  30  cents,  all  other 
products  in  proportion,  which  is  less  than  cost  of 
production.  Wheat  has  been  fed  to  cattle,  corn 
used  for  fuel,  and  potatoes  allowed  to  rot  in  the 
ground  because  eight  cents  a  bushel  would  not  pay 
for  digging  and  hauling  tC)  market.  Examples  like 
this  can  be  multiplied  all  over  the  country.  No 
wonder  the  farmer  knows  something  is  wrong  when 
money  is  everything  and  property  is  nothing. 
You  forget  that  cheap  money  and  inflation  of 
values  is  the  law  of  commercial  growth,  and  con- 
traction or  congestion  is  hurtful  and  ruinous.  You 
put  your  money  mto  United  States  bonds  which 
you  have  made  a  lazy  fund  for  millionaires. 

^  'And  when  you  can  find  no  profitable  invest- 
ment for  your  money,  you  try  to  force  the  United 
States  to  issue  bonds  for  your  lazy  benefit  without 
law  and  contrary  to  law. 

"This  is  the  acme  of  your  supreme  selfishness 
and  the  summit  of  your  sordid  motives.  You 
would  rob  and  destroy  the  best  government  on 
earth  to  satisfy  your  cupidity.  And  your  cupidity 
is  a  sad  spectacle  to  the  distressed  patriots  of  our 
country.  You  threaten  to  convert  the  $500,000,- 
000  of  greenbacks  and  treasury  notes  into  bonds 
for  your  benefit,  and  thus  contract  and  destroy  half 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


our  currency  when  you  should  increase  the  currency 
sufficient  to  increase  the  price  of  commodities  and 
labor,  as  the  only  inducement  for  people  to  engage 
in  commercial  enterprises.'' 

''But  that  is  the  only  way  to  keep  on  the  pres- 
ent gold  standard, ' 'interrupted  the  eastern  banker. 

''Then  the  present  gold  standard  should  go  to 
the  perdition  of  the  ungodly,  for  if  it  don't  it  will 
take  the  people  and  the  country  there. 

THE  ANARCHISTS  OF  WALL  STREET. 

"You  people  talk  of  anarchists  and  yet  you 
have  the  most  anarchistic  documents  sent  out  from 
Wall  street  weekly  decrying  against  popular  gov- 
ernment and  legislation,  such  as  would  put  Herr 
Most  to  shame.  I  copy  two  samples  from  Henry 
Clewes'  financial  review  of  May,  1896: 

'*But  Wall  street  has  learned  to  believe  there 
are  greater  potencies  than  party  platforms,  than 
legislative  subserviency  to  popular  ignorance. 
There  are  situations  and  events  that  can  instantly 
coerce,  and  convert  the  most  reckless  legislator  in- 
to the  willing  servants  of  a  conservative  sentiment 
that  represents  the  real  interests  and  safety  of  the 
nation.''  Wall  street  decides  what  is  ^ 'the  real  in- 
terests and  safety  of  the  nation,  and  would  coerce 


132 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


legislators.''  What  bold  assumption.  Butfurther: 
"The  near  prospect  of  the  authorization  of  free 
coinage — a  counting  of  heads  showing  a  two-thirds 
vote  in  the  house  and  senate  for  i6  to  i — would 
provoke  in  Wall  street  the  kind  of  conditions  that 
no  Congress  has  ever  yet  dared  to  disregard.'' 

'^What  is  this  but  a  declaration  of  anarchy  or 
revolution?  A  threat  that  Wall  street  will  have 
her  way  or  wreck  the  country  if  she  is  provoked. 
The  money  power  and  the  metropolitan  press 
should  look  to  their  own  glass  houses  before  they 
throw  stones. 

Again,  presidents  of  banks,  trusts  and  syndi- 
cates will  get  together  with  Mark  Hanna  and  talk 
tariff,  a  dead  issue,  and  explain  how  they  can  make 
this  country  rich  by  taxing  it,  just  as  a  man  can  lift 
himself  by  pulling  at  his  boot-straps,  and  shed 
crockodile  tears  over  the  loss  the  poor  man  will 
sustain  by  changing  to  bi-metalism,  and  all  the 
time  they  are  fooling  no  one.  Then  they  retire  to 
their  officers  cut  the  wages  of  their  employes,  and 
double  the  price  of  the  poor  man's  articles  con- 
trolled by  the  trusts,  and  call  this  business.  They 
will  demand  protection  for  American  industries 
and  then  endeavor  to  destroy  silver,  one  of  our 
greatest  products,  and  then  like  the  ostrich  that 
hides  its  head,  they  imagine  no  one  sees  their  grea 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  133 

bulky  bodies,  and  inconsistent  hypocrisy.  You 
claim  that  the  present  single  standard  is  the  only 
way  to  keep  gold  and  silver  both  in  circulation 
and  yet  it  is  the  very  system  that  tends  to  keep 
out  of  circulation,  as  our  financial  condition  demon- 
strates, the  gold  which  is  locked  up,  three-quarters 
held  as  reserve,  and  silver  which  is  so  depreciated 
that  it  circulates  with  difficulty.'' 

''Well,  is  it  not  a  depreciating  currency  bad ?" 
asked  the  easterner. 

^'Yes,  a  depreciating  currency  is  bad,  but  his- 
tory demonstrates  that  an  appreciating  one  is 
worse,  The  first  hurts  the  creditor,  the  latter, 
despoils  the  debtor.  The  tendency  of  the  first  is  to 
equalize  the  distribution  of  wealth,  that  of  the  lat- 
ter to  concentrate  it,  making  the  many  helpless  de- 
pendants of  the  few.  This  explains  why  the  cred- 
itor east  are  for  a  single  gold  standard.  Selfish- 
ness is  the  basic  principle.  May  the  Lord  save  us 
from  the  so-called  blessings  of  the  gold  standard* 
and  the  sad  delusions  of  'sound  money" — a  money 
whose  sound  is  never  heard  except  by  the  million- 
aire. But  again  is  it  not  dangerous  for  the  banks 
to  assume  a  private  guardianship  over  the  treasury 
as  in  their  recent  attempt  in  New  York  to  save  the 
credit  of  the  nation  by  their  proffered  gold  to  bring- 
up  the  reserve.    Might  not  these  same  patriotic 


134  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

bankers  do  as  they  have  done  in  the  past,  wrok 
great  detriment  to  the  nation's  honor  and  credit 
when  it  is  to  their  interest  to  do  so?  But  I  fear  I 
weary  you  and  will  say  good-day." 


CHAPTER  XX. 

BI-METALISM  SHOULD    BE  RESTORED  WITHOUT  DELAY. 

We  have  thus  seen  that  money  is  a  medium 
of  exchange,  a  measure  of  value,  and  a  standard  of 
deferred  payments. 

That  while  it  performs  these  three  functions 
its  debt  paying  power  is  determined  by  law.  That 
as  Aristottle  said  two  thousand  years  ago,  ''Money 
by  itself  has  value  only  by  law^  and  not  by  nature.'' 
The  value  of  money  is  its  purchasing  power,  and 
is  determined  not  by  its  substance  but  by  the  func- 
tions it  performs.  One  of  the  most  important  re- 
quisites of  money  is  unvarying  purchasing  power 
or  stability  of  value.  This  is  especially  important 
where  there  are  deferred  payments,  also  to  pre- 
serve uniformity  of  prices  for  commodities  upon 
which  business  success  must  greatly  depend. 
Money  is  essential  to  civilization,  and  its  sound- 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


135 


ness  or  honesty  depends  upon  its  stability.  Abso 
lute  stability  is  impossible,  but  the  best  money  is 
that  which  chancres  least  in  purchasing  power. 

We  have  seen  that  by  this  test  silver  as  stand- 
ard money  has  received  the  approval  of  all  civil- 
ized nations,  ancient  and  modern,  and  is  the  money 
of  the  vastly  greater  part  of  the  world.  Its  history 
of  usefulness  far  exceeds  that  of  gold.  It  was  the 
standard  of  value  in  Egypt,  Phoenicia,  Greece, 
Rome,  France,  England  and  all  nations  civilized 
and  uncivilized  until  a  very  recent  date.  Locke 
says  it  was  ''the  money  of  account  and  measure  of 
trade  all  through  the  world,"  while  he  said,  "Gold 
is  not  the  money  of  the  world  or  measure  of  com- 
merce^  or  fit  to  be  so.  "  He  and  Ricardo  asserted 
that  silver  was  more  stable  than  gold.  In  early 
times  gold  was  used  by  weight  only,  and  its  use  as 
money  in  ordinary  business  is  of  recent  date.  It 
was  not  coined  in  England  until  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  it  has  always  been  deemed 
less  stable  in  value  than  silver. 

Monser  says  gold  fell  in  value  33^3  per  cent 
*  about  100  B.  C.,  and  further  declined  25  per  cent 
after  the  conquest  of  Gaul  by  Csesar.  Professor 
Jevons  estimates  the  value  of  gold  fell  46  per  cent 
from  1 789  to  1809,  then  advanced  149  per  cent.  In 
1849,  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California  caused 


136  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

a  decline  of  20  percent  to  1873.  And  the  best 
authorities  claim  that  gold  has  risen  85  to  105  per 
cent  since  1873. 

Mr.  Leonard  Courtney  says:  *'It  is  a  dream 
to  suppose  that  gold  is  stable  in  value."  And  all 
authorities,  up  to  a  few  recent  politicians,  declare 
that  silver  is  more  stable  in  value  than  gold,  and 
therefore  is  the  real  honest  and  sound  money. 

In  Peru  in  the  sixteenth  century,  when  there 
was  no  law  for  its  protection,  gold  sank  to  a  level 
with  silver  in  value^  and  because  of  abundance, 
shoes  sold  for  $^so  a  pair  and  a  bottle  of  wine  $700 
in  gold.  Therefore  silver  being  more  stable  in 
value,  more  general  in  use  and  approved  by  uni- 
versal experience  should  be  restored. 

There  has  been  a  steady  fall  of  prices  in  gold 
countries,  while  in  silver  countries  prices  have 
not  generally  changed.  The  greater  stability 
of  silver  is  thus  established. 

As  a  debtor  nation,  paying  in  commodities, 
our  loss  by  the  fall  of  prices  is  almost  incredible, 
and  there  is  but  one  remedy — the  increase  of  pri- 
mary money — or  a  return  to  the  double  standard, 
or  free  coinage  of  silver. 

Silver  should  be  restored  because  it  is  the 
money  of  the  constitution  and  the  people,  and  was 
destroyed  in  violation  of  the  constitution,  and 
against  the  people. 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  137 

Because  the  double  standard  is  the  best,  most 
convenient  and  stable  as  a  financial  system. 

Because  it  provides  for  a  currency  more  abun- 
dant and  elastic,  and  no  part  of  it  which  is  a  me- 
nace to  the  government. 

Because  it  produces  more  uniformity  of  values 
and  is  just  to  the  debtor  and  the  creditors,  enabling 
him  to  pay  in  either  metal  at  his  option  in  case  the 
other  is  cornered. 

Because  it  prevents  the  millionaire  speculators 
from  cornering  or  controlling  the  money  of  the 
world,  which  they  can  and  do  accomplish  on  the 
single  standard.  * 

Because  silver  is  the  practical  active  metal 
money  of  the  world,  and  gold  is  the  theoretic 
hoarded  metal  money  of  the  world,  and  they  travel 
like  twin  brothers  together,  on  equal  terms,  but 
when  divorced,  gold  is  insufficient  and  dear,  and 
hides  at  the  least  alarm,  and  the  people  virtually 
have  no  money. 

Because  gold  alone  is  quick  to  hide  and  slow 
to  come  forth,  and  appreciates  in  value  too  rapidly 
and  thereby  depreciates  the  value  of  all  property 
and  products,  causing  business  stagnation. 

Because  the  double  standard,  or  bi-metalism, 
was  used,  tested,  tried  and  found  satisfactory  by 
all  nations  of  the  earth,  in  all  ages,  and  under  all 


138  MAN  AND  MAMMON, 

conditions,  until  in  the  past  twenty-three  years,  ex- 
cept England,  until  the  last  seventy  years. 

Because  England's  example  was  no  criterion 
for  the  rest  of  the  world,  for  it  benefitted  only  her 
millionaires,  to  the  injury  and  detriment  of  the 
great  masses  of  her  people. 

Because  the  single  or  gold  standard  is  an  ex- 
periment of  only  sixteen  and  one-half  years  in 
America,  yet  it  has  produced  two  most  disastrous 
panicS;  and  more  business  depression,  ruin  and 
bankruptcy  than  ever  known  in  this  country  in  the 
same  period  of  time.  Its  very  announcement  in 
1873,  before  it  becfame  operative,  precipitated  a 
direful  panic  and  the  repeal  of  the  only  law  tend- 
ing to  the  double  standard  projected  another  fearful 
panic  and  crisis,  which  continues  its  ruin  to  the 
present  day. 

Because  it  has  proved  a  ruinous  experiment  in 
France,  Germany,  and  wherever  tried. 

Because  it  tends  to  produce  poverty  and  dis- 
tress among  the  masses,  and  doubles  the  power 
and  oppression  of  wealth,  builds  up  an  aristocratic 
money  power,  and  reduces  the  people  to  financial 
poverty. 

Because  it  is  in  the  interest  of  the  rich  alone, 
the  favored  scheme  of  the  kings  and  monarchs  of 
Europe  to  reduce  their  people  to  abject  vassalage 
and  destroy  the  liberties  of  their  subjects. 


MAN  i\ND  MAMMON.  139 

Because  it  means  the  reduction  of  the  masses 
to  pauperism,  and  the  supremacy  of  aristocratic 
wealth. 

Because  the  single  standard  is  a  recent,  most 
disastrous  experiment,  and  colossal  failure. 

Because  it  has  been  fastened  on  all  countries 
who  have  it,  by  fraud,  secrecy  or  dictation  of  the 
rich,  without  the  consent  of  the  people. 

Because  we  are  the  only  country  where  the 
people  rule,  and  we  should  protect  the  people  from 
its  injustice  and  ruin,  and  set  an  example  to  all 
other  nations. 

Because  wherever  it  exists,  it  has  produced  fi- 
nancial ruin,  depression  and  dissatisfaction,  and 
the  people  are  striving,  wherever  it  exists,  to  cast 
off  this  yoke  of  gold,  and  have  been  delayed,  de- 
ceived and  thwarted  by  the  machinations  of  the 
money  power. 

Because  we  set  the  first  bad  example  of  de- 
grading silver  in  recent  times,  and  we  should  set 
the  first  good  example  of  restoring  it. 

Because  in  this  country  the  law  forcing  the 
single  standard  was,  and  is,  unconstitutional  and 
void,  and  a  usurpation  of  power. 

Because  silver  is  one  of  our  greatest  products 
and  it  is  to  our  interest  to  protect  it. 


I40  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

Because  gold  is  too  weak  a  financial  system  to 
endure  agitation  or  discussion. 

Because  it  has  brought  greater  distress  than 
could  possibly  result  from  the  restoration  of  silver. 

Because  national  honor  does  not  require  its 
continuance,  and  national  credit  and  prosperity  re- 
quires its  discontinuance. 

Because  it  is  an  inverted  pyramid  and  any  in- 
crease of  other  monty  tends  to  topple  it  over. 

Because  under  it  the  more  currency  we  have 
the  less  we  can  safely  use. 

Because  there  is  no  free  silver  country  in  the 
world  but  what  is  more  prosperous  than  it  was 
twenty  years  ago  and  pays  better  wages;  and  there 
is  no  gold  standard  country  but  what  is  less  pros- 
perous and  pays  less  wages. 

Because  no  free  coinage  country  in  the  world 
needs  gold  as  a  currency,  and  no  gold  standard 
country  uses  it  extensively  and  generally. 

Therefore,  by  restorirfg  silver  the  struggle  for 
gold  will  cease,  and  it  will  no  longer  be  a  disturb- 
inof  factor — the  creditor  and  debtor  classes  will  be 
on  more  equal  terms,  money  will  cease  to  rise,  and 
property  cease  to  fall  in  value,  thus  producing  busi- 
ness activity  and  prosperity. 

Then  will  men  applaud  the  silver  craze  as  the 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  141 

acme  of  wisdom,  and  reprobate  the  gold  lunacy  as 
the  worst  crime  in  the  world's  history. 

The  humiliating  spectacle  of  a  rich  nation  in 
times  of  profound  peace  and  abundance  issuing 
bonds  to  buy  gold  and  begging  the  protection  of 
a  foreign  syndicate,  and  turning  its  treasury  over 
to  its  rapacity  in  an  endless  chain  of  ruin  would 
cease.  The  ''irrepressible  conflict''  over  our  finan- 
cial system  thus  ended  in  the  interest  of  freedom, 
and  humanity  would  crown  the  nation  with  the 
blessings  of  peace,  happiness  and  prosperity. 

May  all  lovers  of  mankind  who  would  help  the 
struggling  masses  to  better  living  and  nobler  aspir- 
ations, who  would  be  j^ust  to  the  poor  as  well  as 
the  rich,  and  protect  the  needy  from  ihe  grasp  of 
avarice,  and  the  weak  from  the  arrogance  of  gold, 
champion  the  cause  of  bi-metalism — the  cause  of 
freedom  and  humanity.  The  way  is  open,  the 
time  is  propitious,  the  omens  are  favorable,  and 
the  battle  for  free  silver,  free  men,  justice,  pros- 
perity and  self-government  has  begun.  The  duty 
of  all  is  to  follow  that  brilliant  and  intrepid  leader 
of  Democracy,  William  J.  Bryan,  who  in  that 
burst  of  marvelous  eloquence  and  patriotism  at 
Chicago  said:  "It  is  the  issue  of  1776  over  again. 
Our  ancestors,  when  but  three  million,  declared 
their  political  independence  of  every  other  nation, 


142  MAN  AND  MAMMON. 

shall  we,  their  descendants,  when  we  have  grown 
to  seventy  millions,  declare  we  are  less  independ- 
ent than  our  forefathers?  There  is  no  private 
character  however  pure,  no  personal  popularity 
however  great  can  protect  from  the  avenging  wrath 
of  an  indignant  people,  the  man  who  will  either 
declare  that  he  is  in  favor  of  fastening  the  gold 
standard  on  this  people  or  who  is  willing  to  sur- 
render the  right  of  self  government  and  place  legis- 
lative control  in  the  hands  of  potentates  and 
powers." 

A  PATRIOTIC  PROPHECY. 

Thank  heaven  !  Our  country  has  never  known 
the  feudal  scourge  of  medieval  slavery,  the  entail- 
ment of  baronial  estates,  or  the  crouching  vassal- 
age to  king  or  duke,  or  hereditary  lord.  And  may 
she  never  know  the  crushing  tyranny  of  concen- 
trated wealth  and  power. 

I  believe  this  question  will  be  settled  soon  in 
favor  of  justice,  humanity  and  prosperity.  And 
those  who  administer  the  government,  obey  the 
divine  edict,  ''let  him  that  is  greatest  among  you  be 
your  servant."  We  are  today,  if  untrameled  by  de- 
structive legislation,  the  most  powerful  and  wealthy 
nation  on  earth. 

By  reason  of  the  compactness  and  fertility  of 


MAN  AND  MAMMON.  143 

our  territory,  and  the  energy  and  intelligence  of 
our  citizens,  we  are  able  to  cope  with  all  the  rest 
of  the  world.  And  had  we  the  spirit  of  conquest 
like  Rome,  we  could  now  possess  a  hemisphere  in 
spite  of  the  combined  nations  of  the  earth. 

We  have  what  no  nation  ever  before  pos- 
sessed, and  what  all  the  world  did  not  have  at  the 
commencement  of  this  century — forty  millions  of 
educated  people.  Rome,  in  the  zenith  of  her 
power,  when  she  embraced  the  known  world,  had 
less  than  twenty-three  millions,  including  barbari- 
ans, and  not  a  half  a  million  of  educated  people. 

In  a  few  more  years  the  concrete  wisdom  and 
patriotism  of  our  people,  will  have  settled  all  the 
puzzling  question  that  have  marred  our  peace  or 
retarded  our  prosperity — questions  of  tariff  and 
finance,  protection  of  labor  and  encroachments  of 
.capital — all  settled.  And  our  marvelous  prosperi- 
ty and  renown  will  fill  the  earth  with  wonder,  while 
the  coming  centuries  point  the  finger  of  destiny  to 
the  two  continents  as  our  possession^  and  the  west- 
ern hemisphere  for  the  great  republic.  Not  by 
conquest,  for  mankind  has  at  last  discovered  that 
commerce  must  take  the  place  of  war,  and  that 
mutual  interest  and  love  bind  stronger  than  bayo- 
nets. 

Let  no  pessimistic  croaker  harrow  the  patri- 


144 


MAN  AND  MAMMON. 


Otic  soul  of  any  American,  by  prating  of  the  man 
on  horseback.  The  world  will  never  produce  an- 
other Napoleon  any  more  than  another  Shakes- 
peare. The  doctrine  of  the  future,  ''it  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive,"  will  be  the  colos- 
sal and  endearing  principle  of  earth's  highest  beati- 
tudes. The  dangers  oi  the  future  will  be  less  than 
those  of  the  past,  and  the  patriotic  good  sense  of 
the  masses  will  preserve  the  nation  as  they  did  in 
the  darkest  trials  through  which  it  passed,  and  they 

Are  tokens  through  the  coming  vears, 
Whose  clouds  of  darkness  black  with  fears, 
Rise  o'er  the  hills  and  drape  the  land — 
That  patriot  hearts  will  throb  and  stand, 
In  strength  like  Grecian  phalanx  true, 
In  beauty  like  the  rainbows  hue. 

A  nation,  nobly,  truly  great. 

And  worth  a  million  hero  lives, 
And  towering  o'er  the  realms  of  fate, 

Enduring  as  the  earth  and  skies. 


14957 


